bibtex style enforcing title capitalization

[Felipe G. Nievinski]

The custom-bib package offers two options for title capitalization:
"sentence" and "title". Sentence-style capitalizes the first word and
words following colons; title-style leaves it capitalized as in the
bib file.

I'd need a third style: full-style, capitalizing all words except
articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. As in this example: "A Book
Title", even when the title entry in the bibtex database (.bib) is
_not_ capitalized, as in title={A book title}.

The solution that I found so far is to have the title entry in the bib
file capitalized as it should appear in title-style (as in title={A
Book Title}). In other words: the bst file enforces format only for
sentence-style. Isn't such behavior agaisnt the bibtex philosophy, in
which formatting is the style's responsibility (bst), not the
database's (bib)? I'd rather have a bst file that enforces the correct
formatting regardless of the way the bib file was entered.

Felipe.

[jon]

Post by Felipe G. Nievinski
"sentence" and "title". Sentence-style capitalizes the first word and
words following colons; title-style leaves it capitalized as in the
bib file.
I'd need a third style: full-style, capitalizing all words except
articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. As in this example: "A Book
Title", even when the title entry in the bibtex database (.bib) is
_not_ capitalized, as in title={A book title}.
The solution that I found so far is to have the title entry in the bib
file capitalized as it should appear in title-style (as in title={A
Book Title}). In other words: the bst file enforces format only for
sentence-style. Isn't such behavior agaisnt the bibtex philosophy, in
which formatting is the style's responsibility (bst), not the
database's (bib)? I'd rather have a bst file that enforces the correct
formatting regardless of the way the bib file was entered.

you could take a look at biblatex. the package provides
\MakeSentenceCase(*) and \MakeCapital commands to alter the existing
styles (or creating your own). the default behaviour, though, is to
follow the capitalization of the bib entry, leaving anything wrapped
in braces untouched. so you probably still don't want to capitalize
letters willy-nilly (e.g., 'a BOok tiTLe')....

cheers,
jon.

[Felipe G. Nievinski]

Post by Felipe G. Nievinski
"sentence" and "title". Sentence-style capitalizes the first word and
words following colons; title-style leaves it capitalized as in the
bib file.
I'd need a third style: full-style, capitalizing all words except
articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. As in this example: "A Book
Title", even when the title entry in the bibtex database (.bib) is
_not_ capitalized, as in title={A book title}.
The solution that I found so far is to have the title entry in the bib
file capitalized as it should appear in title-style (as in title={A
Book Title}). In other words: the bst file enforces format only for
sentence-style. Isn't such behavior agaisnt the bibtex philosophy, in
which formatting is the style's responsibility (bst), not the
database's (bib)? I'd rather have a bst file that enforces the correct
formatting regardless of the way the bib file was entered.

you could take a look at biblatex.  the package provides
\MakeSentenceCase(*) and  \MakeCapital commands to alter the existing
styles (or creating your own).  the default behaviour, though, is to
follow the capitalization of the bib entry, leaving anything wrapped
in braces untouched.  so you probably still don't want to capitalize
letters willy-nilly (e.g., 'a BOok tiTLe')....

biblatex [1] seems impressive, indeed. I'm afraid I'm stuck with
bibtex, though, because I'm relying on the custom-bib package, and I
don't think they are inter-compatible.

Thanks for the hint --- I look forward to using biblatex in the
future.
Felipe.

[1]<http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/entries/
biblatex.html>

[C Hanck]

I have no experience with custom-bib, but I am not sure that bibtex
can do all that for you. Wouldn't that require bibtex to know what the
set of articles, prepositions, and conjunctions comprises? I do not
think that belongs to its capabilities ;-)

My suggestion would be to indeed enter everything I might want to have
capitalised also in capital letters in my bib file. I can then use
styles that respect that capitalization, e.g. econometrica. If I then
want a style that reduces everything to lowercase letters I simply use
a style that does just that. Of course, whether or not e.g.
econometrica meets all your other needs is not clear. To create a bst
style that meets all of your needs you could have a look at makebst.

Best wishes

Christoph

Post by Felipe G. Nievinski

Post by Felipe G. Nievinski
I'd need a third style: full-style, capitalizing all words except
articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. As in this example: "A Book
Title", even when the title entry in the bibtex database (.bib) is
_not_ capitalized, as in title={A book title}.
The solution that I found so far is to have the title entry in the bib
file capitalized as it should appear in title-style (as in title={A
Book Title}). In other words: the bst file enforces format only for
sentence-style. Isn't such behavior agaisnt the bibtex philosophy, in
which formatting is the style's responsibility (bst), not the
database's (bib)? I'd rather have a bst file that enforces the correct
formatting regardless of the way the bib file was entered.

you could take a look at biblatex.  the package provides
\MakeSentenceCase(*) and  \MakeCapital commands to alter the existing
styles (or creating your own).  the default behaviour, though, is to
follow the capitalization of the bib entry, leaving anything wrapped
in braces untouched.  so you probably still don't want to capitalize
letters willy-nilly (e.g., 'a BOok tiTLe')....

biblatex [1] seems impressive, indeed. I'm afraid I'm stuck with
bibtex, though, because I'm relying on the custom-bib package, and I
don't think they are inter-compatible.
Thanks for the hint --- I look forward to using biblatex in the
future.
Felipe.
[1]<http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/entries/
biblatex.html>

[Joost Kremers]

Post by Felipe G. Nievinski
"sentence" and "title". Sentence-style capitalizes the first word and
words following colons; title-style leaves it capitalized as in the
bib file.
I'd need a third style: full-style, capitalizing all words except
articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. As in this example: "A Book
Title", even when the title entry in the bibtex database (.bib) is
_not_ capitalized, as in title={A book title}.
The solution that I found so far is to have the title entry in the bib
file capitalized as it should appear in title-style (as in title={A
Book Title}). In other words: the bst file enforces format only for
sentence-style. Isn't such behavior agaisnt the bibtex philosophy, in
which formatting is the style's responsibility (bst), not the
database's (bib)? I'd rather have a bst file that enforces the correct
formatting regardless of the way the bib file was entered.

i agree that would be preferable, but it's just not what bibtex has been
designed to do. the standard rule is to have the words that need to be
capitalized in *some* styles capitalized in the .bib-file, so that the
style can determine whether to leave them untouched or decapitalize
everything that's not the first word of the title.

[Felipe G. Nievinski]

Post by Joost Kremers

Post by Felipe G. Nievinski
"sentence" and "title". Sentence-style capitalizes the first word and
words following colons; title-style leaves it capitalized as in the
bib file.
I'd need a third style: full-style, capitalizing all words except
articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. As in this example: "A Book
Title", even when the title entry in the bibtex database (.bib) is
_not_ capitalized, as in title={A book title}.
The solution that I found so far is to have the title entry in the bib
file capitalized as it should appear in title-style (as in title={A
Book Title}). In other words: the bst file enforces format only for
sentence-style. Isn't such behavior agaisnt the bibtex philosophy, in
which formatting is the style's responsibility (bst), not the
database's (bib)? I'd rather have a bst file that enforces the correct
formatting regardless of the way the bib file was entered.

i agree that would be preferable, but it's just not what bibtex has been
designed to do. the standard rule is to have the words that need to be
capitalized in *some* styles capitalized in the .bib-file, so that the
style can determine whether to leave them untouched or decapitalize
everything that's not the first word of the title.

Yeah, it's wiser to use bibtex the way it was designed... after you
figure out what was the designer's intention! Lots of manual reading
for that, though... ;-)

Thanks again.
Felipe.