Better bibtex, journal abbreviations.

Alastair Heffernan
Hi, have been using better bibtex to generate .bib files for my Latex and it's been working fine. Just switched to using journal abbreviations and I'm having what I hope is an easy to fix problem.

The full stops (periods) after the abbreviated names are't always there. For example Journal of Viral Hepatitis becomes J. Viral Hepat. which is clearly wrong.

In a nutshell I would love to know how to choose when full stops appear in the abbreviated names and when they do not. For example PLoS like abbreviations without full stops in the abbreviated names so would be great if I could generate this. Plus having consistency (all full stops or none, not the mix I have at the moment) would be great.

Thanks
  • noksagt
    For example Journal of Viral Hepatitis becomes J. Viral Hepat. which is clearly wrong.
    How so? Viral is not abbreviated, so should not have a stop...
  • Alastair Heffernan
    edited December 20, 2015
    That is a good point. I now feel very stupid!!! But thanks.

    But my main need is to get rid of all the full stops (sometimes, like in writing a paper for PLoS One). So J Viral Hepat etc. Do you know how to go about that?

    Cheers
  • noksagt
    I don't know whether bbt has this export option, but I couldn't find it.

    Your best style file can tell the bibtex processor to strip the periods and I think this is an option of makebst. That's probably what I'd do.
  • emilianoeheyns
    edited December 26, 2015
    If this is a problem with Better BibTeX, please lodge an issue at https://github.com/ZotPlus/zotero-better-bibtex/issues ; I don't come here frequently. Journal abbreviation by BBT uses the Zotero abbreviator, so it should get the same output.
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited December 26, 2015
    ...so it should get the same output
    Not necessarily. Zotero styles treat the abbreviations appropriately depending upon the style selected. However, when item records are run through BBT that program's influence may change (or not properly interpret) what Zotero has exported.

    Zotero "prefers" metadata with periods because periods can be automatically removed. Periods cannot be reliably added. A Zotero style that requires periods can have them and, for a style that has no periods for journal abbreviations, will remove the stored periods when output requires none.

    Have you selected a Zotero style that is without periods within the journal abbreviation?
  • emilianoeheyns
    edited December 26, 2015
    > Zotero styles treat the abbreviations appropriately depending upon the style selected.

    Which is why BBT has you select the desired abbreviation style to pass into Zotero.Cite.getAbbreviation if you have auto-abbreviation enabled.

    > However, when item records are run through BBT that program's influence may change (or not properly interpret) what Zotero has exported.

    Huh? In what sense are "item records run through BBT", and in what sense "that program's influence may change (or not properly interpret) what Zotero has exported"? I don't know how to interpret these in relation to the question of BBTs abbreviator. BBT is not a separate program. It's an extension to Zotero, and a bunch of bundled Zotero translators.

    And of course BBT "may change" the data at any stage (that is after all the translators job) but in this case I happen to know it does not. BBT simply calls Zotero.Cite.getAbbreviation and passes the result to the translator.

    > Zotero "prefers" metadata with periods because periods can be automatically removed. Periods cannot be reliably added

    And BBT simply passes on whatever Zotero "prefers". If Zotero adds the periods, BBT produces them. If not, then neither does BBT.

    Perhaps I'm missing something in your explanation but I don't know how to interpret "may change". I have coded this feature myself. If there's anything not working with it I'd love to get an issue about it so I can fix it. But that assumes it *does* change something, not that it "may change" something. Ley lines "may change" Zotero exports too, but it's not enough to go on as an issue report.
  • DWL-SDCA
    At least one of us is misunderstanding the other. I'll bow out so that others can comment and, I hope, be more helpful.
  • emilianoeheyns
    Let me attempt then to quell the confusion:

    BBT should yield the same journal abbreviations that Zotero does when it generates a bibliography. I am also quite sure, given the current implementation, BBT actually does. But I'm not perfect, and BBT may of course deviate from this at some point; that would be a bug. If there is such a bug, I'd love to hear about it at https://github.com/ZotPlus/zotero-better-bibtex/issues, which will allow me to fix it.
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