Bibtex export: Wrong value for author, if only last name is defined

mobam
Hello,

i have found a bug at the bibtex export of Zotero.

When a record has no first name (eg if an institution acts as publisher, I only use the last name field) and I export my library with BibTeX or biblatex, then the value of the author field is the same as the author of the record before in the bib-file. So, de facto, you have a wrong author name for the entry.

Does anyone know why this is so and whether you can change this somehow?

Thank you,
mobam
  • adamsmith
    I'll take a look, thanks - though note that you should switch those entries to single field mode by clicking on the white rectangle behind the name - I'm pretty sure if you do that the exported bibtex will be correct, too.
  • mobam
    oh :)
    shame on me! I didn’t notice that option by now… :)
  • adamsmith
    is that still the case for you? I can't replicate the problem.
  • mobam
    hey,

    actually there was no problem. I just didn’t notice the option to switch between one and two fields. As you can see in my last post, it was a typical pebkac, i guess :)
  • adamsmith
    right, but I'd want that fixed even for wrongly entered data (i.e. last name only in two-field mode). Could you see if you still get the problem that way?
  • mobam
    yes, the problem still appears.
    I use the biblatex-exporter.
    It doesn’t matter if you insert the name in the first or the second field. In each case, the author or editor field is filled with the last name of that field from the bibtex-entry before.
  • adamsmith
    thanks - ticket here: https://github.com/zotero/translators/issues/669
    best I can tell this is biblatex only, bibtex export doesn't do this.
  • adamsmith
    ok, fixed now
    Your version of Zotero will automatically update within 24hs, or you can update manually using the "Update Now" button in the "General" tab of the Zotero preferences.

    Any further problems let us know & thanks for reporting
  • mobam
    btw: Thank you! :)
  • LuisaMM
    I just discovered this option - to switch between one and two fields for author - and it solved the same issue for me!
    [I am using zotero to feed the reference .bib file in an R bookdown document rendering in both html and word outputs]
  • bwiernik
    If you are using RMarkdown, you should esport to CSL JSON or CSL YAML, not .bib. RMarkdown (pandoc) needs to convert .bib back to CSL internally, and this is a lossy conversion that can lead to errors in citations, especially for non journal items.

    If you aren’t already, you should install the BetterBibTeX plugin—that makes writing in TeX/Markdown with Zotero much better.
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