Bibcut wiki - LaTeX BibTeX Clemens Barth

Bibcut - wiki

Extracting BibTeX items

In his entire life, a scientist can create a large BibTeX library, which includes almost all articles, books, etc. the scientist cited at least once. This library can become quite large with more than thousand entries. If a paper is written, the manuscript is submitted to a journal, which may ask for a BibTeX file containing only the entries cited by the LaTeX manuscript. Or, the Journal asks for \bibitem references, which have to be in the main LaTeX .tex file.
Exactly here helps Bibcut: it searches the citations from the LaTeX file and finds the corresponding entries in the large BibTeX library. A new BibTeX file is created including only the entries, which are cited by the LaTeX file. Bibcut also creates a file, in which all entries appear in the format '\bibitem{key}' in a specific journal style that can be chosen in the preferences. The '\bibitem's can then be copied and pasted into the LaTeX file. So far, the journal styles of APS (American Physical Society), ACS (American Chemical Society), IOP (Institute of Physics), Nature, Wiley and Springer are supported.

Supported journal styles
                                                American Physical Society (PRL, PRB, etc.),
                                              American Chemical Society (JACS, JPC., etc.),
                                                Institute of Physics (J. Phys.: Cond. Mater., New J. Phys., etc.),
                                                Nature,
                                                Wiley,
                                                Springer book style for topics in Computer, Science, Ecenomics, etc.
Entry types
                                          ARTICLE,
                                                BOOK,
                                                INPROCEEDINGS,
                                                PHDTHESIS,
                                                MASTERTHESIS,
                                                INCOLLECTION
                                                MISC

Note: The journal styles can be modified to some extend in a config file. The file is in the directory 'JournalStyles' and is named: 'Journal_styles_linux.bc'. Example:

APS_article_latex = "%s\n%s,\n{\it %s}\n{\bf %s}, %s, %s.\n\n"; // bibitem, Author, Journal, Volume, Pages, Year

The string '%s' is a 'format specifier'. There are 6 of them, which belong, in succession, to the variables 'bibitem', 'Author', 'Journal', 'Volume', 'Pages' and 'Year'. The number of the format specifiers and the variables cannot be changed. However, other characters like brackets, newline commands ('\n'), up to complex LaTeX commands etc. can be removed, modified or added. For instance, the above line can be changed to:

APS_article_latex = "%s %s \textit{%s} \textbf{%s}, %s, %s.\n"; // bibitem, Author, Journal, Volume, Pages, Year

Comparing BibTeX files

If two scientists work together on a large manuscript, they probably use each their own BibTeX library. Bibcut helps to compare both libraries and finds the entries of one BibTeX library, which are missing in the other one. With this, one big BibTeX library can be created including all entries referenced by the manuscript.

Creating an ASCII file that includes all BibTeX references in a specific Journal style

Bibcut creates an ASCII file, which contains all references of a BibTeX library. The Journal style is determined by the journal type chosen in the preferences whereas the journal styles from above are supported (ARTICLE, BOOK, INPROCEEDINGS, PHDTHESIS, MASTERTHESIS, INCOLLECTION). Either plain text or text in the specific LaTeX code with or without keythe bibitem is written into the text file, depending on the options in the preferences.
The ASCII text can be used for other word processing systems like MSWord or LibreOffice, via copy&paste.

Changing the journal names in a BibTeX library

Bibcut can change the journal names. Depending on the preferences, either the full names or abbreviated journals names are processed.
Bibcut compares the journal names with journal names stored in a file, which can be found in the directory JournalStrings. The latter directory is located in the main Bibcut directory and the default Bibcut file is named JournalStrings.bc. In the Bibcut file, a journal is put into a structure, which contains the full name, its abbreviation and possible deviations:

       ******* Journal-start *******
       Physical Review B: Condensed Matter
       Phys. Rev. B: Condens. Matter
       ******* Variations    *******
       Physical Review. B, Condensed matter
       Physical Review B
       Phys. Rev. B
       PRB
       ******* Journal-end   *******

Up to 20 000 journals and 20 variations for one journal name can be stored. One can modify or add other journal names. The advantage of the 'variation' option is that one sometimes spells a journal name in a different way. Bibcut helps here to analyze all variations (if they are included) and replaces a 'deviating' journal name with either the full journal name or the abbreviated journal name. Example above: If option 'abbreviations' is chosen than the names Physical Review. B, Condensed matter, Physical Review B, Phys. Rev. B and PRB are replaced by Phys. Rev. B: Condens. Matter.

Removing double entries in BibTeX files

Sometimes, a BibTeX library contains lots of double entries. Bibcut helps to remove double entries.

Clean author names in BibTeX libraries

Quite often it is desired to have one consistent format of the author string in the author tag (authors = {authors}). Although several formats can be used in general, the most used one is the following:

author = {Author1, A. and Author2, A. B., and Author3, A. B. C.}

Bibcut puts the author names of all entries into this format. The following examples shall demonstrate, in which cases Bibcut finds and changes author strings:

I. Newton and E. Schroedinger and E. Fermi and J. C. Maxwell and A. Einstein
I. Newton And E. Schroedinger AND E. Fermi anD Maxwell, J. C. and Einstein, A.
(Bibcut replaces different type of 'and's with 'and' )
I. and Newton and E. and Schroedinger and E. and Fermi and J. C. and Maxwell and A. and Einstein
Newton and I. and Schroedinger and E. and Fermi and E. and Maxwell and J. C. and Einstein and A.
Isac and Newton and Erwin and Schroedinger and Enrico and Fermi and James Clerk and Maxwell and Albert and Einstein
Newton, Isac and Schroedinger, Erwin and Fermi, Enrico and Maxwell, James Clerk and Einstein, Albert
Newton, I and Schroedinger, E and Fermi, E and Maxwell, J C and Einstein, A
(No '.' after an initial)
Isac Newton and Erwin Schroedinger and Enrico Fermi and James Clerk Maxwell and Albert Einstein

Bibcut transforms all the latter strings to:

Newton, I. and Schroedinger, E. and Fermi, E. and Maxwell, J. C. and Einstein, A.

Cleaning strange characters in BibTeX libraries

It may happen that some BibTeX libraries contain weird characters, which are not part of the ASCII table. For instance, this may probably happen when a BibTeX file is copied, e.g., from a Macintosh to a Linux computer. Bibcut automatically detects files from other operating systems (OS) and creates a temporary 'working' file under the OS that is used.
Programs like Papers, Mendeley or Zotero can also create BibTeX libraries with strange characters. Bibcut helps to find strange characters and marks them with a '?'.

Clean tags of BibTeX entries

Sometimes, it is desired to remove some tags (e.g., abstract, notes, etc.) of the BibTeX entries. Many options can be used in Bibcut for removing specific tags.

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