Book Edition Field - Best Practice?

DWL-SDCA

So that the output works with different styles and languages:
What should be in the edition field--
a simple number "2";
a number with a suffix "2nd";
a number with a suffix and a (book) language-specific abbreviation "2nd ed."?

I have each of these various types in my book records. I don't know what was in the imported metadata.

When editing my Zotero book, book-section, and report records, what format is expected to allow the style to produce the proper output?

adamsmith

the way this is and should be handled in most styles will treat "2" and "2nd" identical - i.e. internally this is just a "2" and gets formatted into ordinals etc. as needed. For regular editions either of those two are recommended.

Anything that's not just a number (with a prefix/suffix like nd, a, c etc.) - including "2nd ed." will be printed verbatim, which is typically not ideal (as a style may require "2nd edition" "second edition" etc.). This is useful, though, were additional information is given for the edition as in "2nd revised edition" or so.

DWL-SDCA

This is very helpful information.

Thanks.

Zorozero

Very useful answer.

Is it possible to bulk change something like "2." to "2"? or "2nd" to "2"?

Same for language.