[bug report, 6.0.30] bibtex export generates invalid keys

ivan.habernal

Version: 6.0.30

Reproduce:

1) Import a recent arxiv paper with a long list of authors, e.g., https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.00159

2) Create bibliography from item -> bibtex generic citation style

3) The output citation contains

@article{Soldaini_Kinney_Bhagia_Schwenk_Atkinson_Authur_Bogin_Chandu_Dumas_Elazar_et al._2024, title= ...

Note the whitespace in the key: "..._et al._..." which causes bibtex to fail on invalid syntax

Moreover, I've installed the better bibtex plugin, changed the key to a single word, but the export ignores the citation key and still exports the invalid key above.

adamsmith

The BibTeX citation style isn't for use with Zotero -- the only reason we keep that in CSL at all is that some tools rely on it. CSL isn't sophisticated enough to avoid things like spaces in keys, which is why it's not a good idea to use it for BibTeX.
Zotero has a significantly more sophisticated BibTeX under Export, where you will also find the even more sophisticated Better BibTeX export from the BBT add-on.

ivan.habernal

Oh, interesting, didn't know that, thanks. But the "Export Item..." and "Better BiBTeX" exports to a file, not to a clipboard. Is there a way to just copy to clipboard directly?

adamsmith

You can set this up as quick copy https://www.zotero.org/support/creating_bibliographies#quick_copy (FWIW, one of the key features of BBT is that it lets you keep a .bib file synchronized, or create it by scanning a document, which seems vastly preferable to using copy and paste)