Preserving Lower Case 'a'

sam_ot
edited June 27, 2018
I am trying to cite an article with the the following title:
"Random walks on dynamic configuration models: a trichotomy".
I want to use title case, so have it appear as
"Random Walks on Dynamic Configuration Models: a Trichotomy".
However, by default the 'a' is capitalised (but not the 'on'). I am using BetterBibLaTeX and biblatex.

If I edit the .bib file to write {a}, then I get the desired format. However, if I change this in the Zotero file, then it outputs \{a\}, which biblatex turns into "{a}". I'd like to have any { or } outputted 'literally', not as \{ or \}. I currently am using

if (Translator.BetterBibLaTeX && this.has.title) {
this.add({ name: 'title', value: item.title.replace(/(\$.*?\$)/g, '< pre >$1< /pre >'), replace: true });
}

to preserve $-s (and I presume other things). (There are no spaces in the "< pre >" or "< /pre >", but if I remove them then this formatting interprets as a quote.) I'd like to add to this code "preserve { and }", but I don't understand Javascript (which I belive the above code is). How can I do this?

Thanks,
Sam
  • adamsmith
    Standard title case capitalizes the subtitle, which is why the "a" is getting capitalized. You're positive you don't want that?
  • sam_ot
    I didn't realise that it was correct to capitalise the first word of a subtitle when one writes "title: subtitle". I must say, it looks extremely unnatural to me to have "a" capitalised when it's not the very first word.

    Maybe I should leave it capitalised... either way, I'd be interested in how to preserve { and } for future reference, should I wish to force upper/lower case in the future.
  • adamsmith
    edited June 27, 2018
    I think <span class="nocase"> a</span> should work.

    See https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/rich_text_bibliography
  • sam_ot
    Indeed, putting that in the title does force lowercase. (I removed the space between ">" and "a", as otherwise there was a double space.)

    While that does force lower case (and I assume by writing an upper case later it will force upper case?), but it doesn't preserve { and }, which I may wish to do in the future...

    I imagine adding something to the code I gave in the original post will do that...
  • sam_ot
    An extension to this question is to do the same with backslash \. In the extra field of one of my items, I want to put a backslash as code. Specifically I have the following:
    "Second edition of [\href{http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=2466937}{MR2466937}])",
    but Zotero outputs this as
    "$\backslash$href\{http...".

    I basically don't want to it to do any 'autocorrecting', but just to output exactly what I write.
  • bwiernik
    You really shouldn’t leave “a” in lower case. It is absolutely correct for it to be capitalized after a colon or em dash.

    Regarding preserving {}, why exactly? The correct way to generate BetterBibTeX output is to either capitalize the word in your Zotero data (to produce an uppercase Word in {}) or to use the span syntax above, to generate a lowercase word (which BibTeX will never capitalize).
  • sam_ot
    Will capitalising it in my Zotero data output {Word} then, or will it just output Word, which BibLaTeX will then decided whether to capitalise or not depending on my style?

    In order to get my desired "\href{..." I definitely need \ and {} preserved, though...?
  • adamsmith
    I'm pretty sure that BBT has an option to preserve all LaTeX markup in titles. You should ask there, which Emiliano prefers.
  • sam_ot
    See, I thought that was what the code already did...

    What is "there"? (can you link me to the correct forum?) Thanks
  • adamsmith
    https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/issues
  • sam_ot
    Thanks. If you add the tag #LaTeX, then I think that outputs exactly the Zotero data is written, which is exactly what I want. Thanks! :)
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