[Jabref-users] Journal abbreviations in seperate bib files

[Patrick D. <pa...@pd...>]

Hi,

I use external *.bib files to manage my journal abbreviations as
proposed by the official BibTeX FAQ:

,----[ ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive/biblio/bibtex/contrib/doc/btxFAQ.pdf ]
| 6. Put your usual journal names into @string definitions, in a
| separate (.bib) file.
|
| The standard bibstyles (plain, abbrv, unsrt, alpha) do contain some
| journal names, all computing-related.  This is not really a sensible
| place because bibstyles are intended to set the format for the
| publication you are contributing to, not keeping a complete list of
| the publications you read and cite from. But, if you want the
| ability to choose full or abbreviated titles, you must go one step
| further and create two files. For example, in one file (say,
| jrnlfull.bib) you might have:
|
| @string{ieee-pas=3D"{IEEE} Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems"}
|
| and in the other (say, jrnlabbr.bib):
|
| @string{ieee-pas=3D"{IEEE} Trans. Power App. Syst."}
|
| and many other entries. Note that both have the same id-strings. To
| select full or abbreviated titles, you can place the appropriate
| file (first) into the \bibliography{} list (Tip 8).
|
| 8. Use the form
| \bibliography{jrnl-names,other-database(s),cross-entries}.
|
| This ensures that all @strings are defined first and that all the
| cross-referenced entries appear after any entries that reference
| them. The selection of full or abbreviated titles is just a matter
| of selecting the appropriate files for this list. With this method,
| the abbreviation of titles does not need to be coupled to the
| abbreviation of authors=E2=80=99 names to initials (the way standard
| bibstyle abbrv.bst works) so you will have much more flexibility.i
`----


Setup looks like this:

,----[ File journall.bib: ]
| [...]
| @string{PTRS =3D "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society"}
| [...]
`----

,----[ File journals.bib: ]
| [...]
| @string{PTRS =3D "Phil Trans R Soc"}
| [...]
`----

The main bib file just includes the STRING:

,----[ File mainliterature.bib: ]
| @ARTICLE{foo,
| [...]=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
|   journal =3D PTRS,
| [...]=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
| }
`----

In my main LaTeX document I use the bibfiles like this:

% \bibliography{journals,mainliterature} % <- abbreviated
\bibliography{journall,mainliterature} % <- long

My problem is that I many abbreviations and I sometimes have to open
to file "journall.bib" to see which STRING I used so I can include it
in the JabRef interface (using the #STRING# syntax).

It would be nice to have another abbreviation interface similar to the
one in use at the moment which can read and display the files
"journal.bib" and "journals.bib".

What do other people think?

Cheers,

Patrick=20
--=20
Black Holes result from God=20
dividing the universe by zero.