BibTeX export request: option to omit certain fields for less cluttered bibliographies
Currently, when I export an item to BibTeX, there are two checkbox options for what should be included: "Export Notes" and "Export Files." But there are many other fields that do get included and are superfluous for some bibliographies. Therefore, it would help if there were additional options for other "secondary" fields, such as:
- Abstract
- Tags/keywords
- DOI
- ISBN
- URL (for published items like books, journal articles, and conference papers)
- Publisher (for conference papers)
I don't think anyone at Zotero has a lot of love for dialogs with lots of boxes that users need to look at, check, uncheck, etc. - also, all of this would need to be invidiually specified in the translator etc.
If you really want this you'll likely have to hack this as a plugin (or into one of the existing plugins).
Finally - this is just aesthetics, right? Bibtex should get the citations correctly regardless.
If this is not a common problem, I understand the desire to avoid UI clutter. But it is something I have to worry about routinely (esp. for abstracts and tags); I'm not sure if it is similarly annoying to other users.
Not necessary an elegant solution, but does the job fairly quickly and efficiently and after all it's not something that needs to be done every day.
I would like to see an advance input text pain in the export option where the exact fields to be exported could be named in text. You developers would have better experience than I of whether that would be feasible in practice.
I am going to try jabref in the future. At present my work around is to delete the series name, but it seems a shame to reduce the amount of reference information in my zotero database on account of this.
When I get time in a few months, I'd be interested to try to put together a plugin if someone would point me in the direction of how to write this.
But as @adamsmith notes, you're much better off with something like:
\AtBeginDocument{
\AtEveryBibitem{\clearfield{month}}
\AtEveryBibitem{\clearfield{day}}
\AtEveryBibitem{\clearfield{endmonth}}
\AtEveryBibitem{\clearfield{endday}}
\AtEveryBibitem{\clearfield{labelmonth}}
\AtEveryBibitem{\clearfield{labelday}}
\AtEveryBibitem{\clearlist{language}}
\AtEveryBibitem{\clearfield{note}}
\DeclareFieldFormat*{issn}{}
\DeclareFieldFormat*{url}{}
\DeclareFieldFormat[online]{url}{\mkbibacro{URL}\addcolon\space\url{#1}}
\DeclareFieldFormat*{urldate}{}
\DeclareFieldFormat[online]{urldate}{\mkbibparens{\bibstring{urlseen}\space#1}}
\DeclareFieldFormat*{citetitle}{\emph{#1}}
\DeclareFieldFormat*{citeauthor}{\emph{#1}}
}
You may
• To install: Download the XPI file. In Zotero, Tools » Add-ons » ⚙ (gear, upper-right) » Install Add-on From File
• To omit abstract from exports: In Zotero, Edit » Preferences » BetterBibTeX (tab) » Fields to omit from export (comma-separated) » "abstract" (without quotes)
comment out the following lines (line numbers might vary slightly):
103: abstract:"abstractNote",
1485: writeField("file", attachmentString.substr(1));
I have tried both 'abstract' and 'abstractNote' in the textbox.
This is the only reason I installed BetterBibTeX. Very disappointing.
RTFM, just updating here in case others make the same mistake. Great to be rid of that flaming abstract.
I have installed the plug-in BetterBibtex in zotero and it happen it fix those issues pretty well.
From the ReadMe:
>Though, only 6 lines from that blog post remain. I made the idea more robust by modifying it to run from the command line, adding automatic outputfile creation, giving options on what to strip, adding input validation, and (most importantly) taking in multiple fields to strip.
The Better BibTeX preferences dialog -> Export -> Fields has an item "Fields to omit from export (comma separated)". OK, but what goes in there? "Accessed" from the Info display of a citation doesn't work. "Retrieved from" from what appears in my LaTeX document doesn't work, but "urldate" does. It's an entry in the .bib file.
"urldate" is not anything a user would know about unless they went mucking around the output of export, and I think it's a stretch go from the Accessed field to urldate. But, it's probably better not to change anything at this point, but to document it.
As far as I can recall, no one I've pointed at the functionality in BBT over the last 5+ years has come back with any issues and everyone who reported back got it to work quickly.
What ends up in your rendered bibliography is entirely up to the style you use, which BBT cannot know; it is structurally impossible (not just "hard", but actually impossible) for BBT to predict what data ends up in your resulting document. BBT's job ends at producing the .bib file.
This does mean you need to understand the style you use well enough so that you can predict or find out what bibtex field corresponds to what output in your document. This is a really bizarre statement for regular users of bibtex. This isn't "mucking about". It's just inspecting your library, much as you would inspect entries in Zotero, unless you also count that as "mucking about". For this you would have to talk to the author of the bibtex style you use, because that's where it is decided that this happens. It's not something BBT or Zotero is even remotely connected to. Or can even know about.
You don't really seem to understand how bibtex works.