Journal abbreviations in Overleaf

mick_greener
Hi,

I'm importing my BBT library into Overleaf without any issues. However, none of my references are abbreviated - so it'll say for example 'Author, Year, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society' rather than 'Author, Year, MNRAS'. Any way to make this happen?

Not using the Firefox plugin; I'm using the Zotero app for Windows and syncing any new references to Overleaf via the 'Keep Updated' checkbox.

Cheers
  • adamsmith
    The "Keep udpated" checkbox in overleaf or in BBT -- because Overleaf's Zotero integration by default doesn't use BBT but Zotero's regular bibtex export, which only includes abbreviations where they're in Zotero's Journal Abbr. file. (Also, of course, whether journals are abbreviated also depends on the bibtex style used)
  • mick_greener
    Hi Adam, thanks for the response, this makes sense.

    I can see that when I add a new journal to Zotero, the Journal Abbr. field is always empty, even if I know that with another program (e.g. Jabref) this field is full. I think I must have messed around with some import setting when I installed Zotero yesterday. I may try uninstalling and starting again (I luckily don't have many references in my library yet) unless you have any other suggestions.

    Cheers
  • emilianoeheyns
    You can use overleaf's git support to get BBT output into overleaf. That's what I'm using myself.
  • adamsmith
    (You'll likely get the best results following Emiliano's advice above which lets you use BBT, but this does introduce git in the equation so you may not want to deal with it. BBT does auto-generate abbreviations, though)

    How did you add/are you adding items to Zotero? The Journal Abbr. is not automatically generated on import, so its presence depends on the source.
  • mick_greener
    Thanks both for the advice.

    I've tried adding items to Zotero from both ADS and arXiv so far, in each instance using the 'Zotero Connector' Firefox add-on (version 5.0.55).
  • adamsmith
    If you'd have a couple of URLs you added items from, that'd help. Definitely don't re-install Zotero -- there's basically zero chance that'd change anything.
  • emilianoeheyns
    Yeah using git is for the dedicated. Once set up it is more or less set-and-forget, but there's command line work involved and errors, while recoverable, don't have a good UI to alert the user. I may well be the only one actively using it.

    I've asked overleaf about an api that would allow smoother integration, but I don't expect one to materialize anytime soon.
  • mick_greener
    For example:
    https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9911459#
    https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002ApJS..142...35K/abstract
    https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003MNRAS.346.1055K/abstract
  • adamsmith
    For ADS, I'm not sure we'll be able to get abbreviations without their help. They're on the page, obviously, but not in the metadata they expose. They've been super responsive in the past, though, so we can try getting in touch about that.

    I think ArXiv is fixable, though -- we're getting the publication data from CrossRef, so this is the same issue as https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/294760/#Comment_294760
  • emilianoeheyns
    Overleaf also does dropbox sync BTW and then auto-export would just work if you export to a dropbox-synced folder.
  • adamsmith
    ArXiv now imports journal abbreviations for published articles.
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