Author reverse format

mibigo

When I import data for example in bibTex or RIs format, but also often when I use the normally the browser extension , the author filed format is displayed in the reverse format Last Name, First Name, even though I normally use the straight format First Last.

Is there a (advanced) preference somewhere, where you can set how you prefer to see the author format displayed (in may case First Last) ? or How it should be imported?

I'm not talking of citation styles, I'm talking of the main window with the list of references and of the editing box or whatever it's called (see below). The alternative is swapping first and last name in the author filed manually which is of course unmanageable when you have thousands of references.

Thank you and best regards

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adamsmith

Last, First is the only proper way to input data in Zotero. "First Laste"aka "single field" mode is principally for institutions and will lead to incorrect export and incorrect citations.

mibigo

Thank you Adam. Of course I see the pointI’m a librarian.. I’m not saying it should not imported that way. I simply would like to have the possibility to easy switch the two modes in the display (mainly in the central pane, but also in the editing pane). Im not a programmer, so I don’t see where is the difficulty of having an option, preference, button or whatever tweak that could simply let me see the names in one format or another . I’m not saying the structure of the database should be changed or the data stored. of course as a librarian when i edit data i follow cataloging rules as well. I’m just asking if there is way to simply tell zotero : display the creator column or field as last, first or viceversa. Is there any reason why this is not feasible?

mjthoraval

You can choose the format you like in the "Authors List" column of this plugin:
https://github.com/github-young/zotero-better-authors

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mibigo

Thank you I didn't know this plugin; however, I'd like still to understand what reasons prevent to have a simple preference that would turn on/off the first/last author format; it's really my personal curiosity. :-)