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Configuration
The Better BibTeX Configuration can be found under the regular Zotero preferences pane, tab 'Better Bib(La)TeX'.
The configuration of Better BibTeX is a little baroque compared to the standard Zotero Bib(La)TeX exporters (which only have hidden preferences). The defaults should just work, but here's an attempt to describe what they do.
Making any change here will drop your entire export cache. This is usually not a problem unless you have a really large library, but you can read about what is involved here.
Used for drag-and-drop/quick copy citations. In the Zotero "Export" pane, choose, "Better BibTeX Quick Copy" as the default export format for quick copy, then set the desired LaTeX citation command here. If you set this to citep, drag-and-drop citations will yield \citep{key1,key2,...}
Used for drag-and-drop/quick copy citations. You can select the output format here: LaTeX (in combination with the Citation command preference), Pandoc, or Org-mode
Set the pattern used to generate citation keys. The format of the keys is documented here.
If you have deviated from the default citation key format pattern by specifycing your own, you may
wind up with non-ASCII characters in your citation keys. You can prevent that using the fold function at the
appropriate place in your pattern, but checking this checkbox will just apply fold to all your keys.
By default, Better BibTeX assigns dynamic keys to your references; if your reference changes, your citation key will
also likely change (depending on which fields you changed). If you don't want this, you can "pin" the citation key; if
you have bibtex: <something> in the extra field of your reference, <something> will be used as the citation key
regardless of what your reference says.
You can have Better BibTeX do this pinning for you automatically. This behavior is off by default, but you can have it automatically pin the key after the first change to the reference (this generally means at reference creation), or at export (and auto-exports count as exports). This is mainly useful to do if you share your library, to make sure you and your co-authors have the same keys, or if you work from multiple workstations. Please note that "on change" does not mean that the reference will be re-pinned on change. Once pinned, no more changes are made to your keys by Better BibTeX itself.
Note: This option requires webdav/zotero sync to be off, or automatic. If you don't sync your references/attachments, it's considered off. If you have syncing set up but not on automatic, this option will be greyed out. Each pinned key change (or clearing of a pinned key) means a change to the reference, and that means the item will be synced if you have that set up. Bulk key changes causing bulk reference changes (which can easily happen if you have on-export and you export your full library) could overwhelm the Zotero sync service if presented all at once; automatic syncing ameliorates that problem. Not doing this would risk sync being permanently impossible, as the Zotero server will kick you out if a sync takes too long.
This determines what happens if you pin a key to a value that is already in use in a different reference but not pinned there. The options are:
- Change the non-pinned key by adding a postfix character. This means the citation key changes which could be problematic for existing papers.
- Keep the non-pinned key as-is. This means your library now has duplicate keys.
Pick your poison.
If you enable this, the extra column in the Zotero reference list (if you have selected it to be shown) will display
the citation key instead of the extra field.
Name handling is a lot more complex than I had ever thought it to be. A lot more complex. This setting determines how
two-part names (that is, names specified in separate last name and first name fields) are handled. When enabled,
Gogh, Rembrandt van will be exported (roughly) to author = {van Gogh, Rembrandt}. This is not always desirable, so
you can disable this, in which case you will get (roughly) author = {Gogh, Rembrandt van}
BibLaTeX supports urls in your references natively; BibTeX does not. For this reason, URLs are omitted from BibTeX
exports by default. Using this setting you can have them added to your exports either in a note field (not as clean, but
compatible with BibTeX out of the box), or in an url field (requires extra packages to be loaded, or bibtex will error
out).
If there are some fields you don't want in your bibtex files (such as note for example), add a list of them here,
separated by comma's.
BibTeX has really spotty Unicode support, so you generally want this on. It will translate things like accented characters to their equivalent LaTeX constructs on export.
BibLaTeX actually has really good Unicode support, so you generally want this off. But for some geezers such as me it is simply more pleasing to have things like accented characters translated to their equivalent LaTeX constructs on export.
Does what it says on the tin, really. If a reference has both a DOI and an URL, you can choose to have them both exported, or either one of them.
When enabled, single-word strings will be assumed to be externally-defined @string vars, and thus not surrounded by braces. If you don't know what this means, leave it off.
By default, Better BibTeX will export attachments including a title and their mimetype, in a format supported by JabRef. Many but not all BibTeX managers support this format, but if yours (like emacs ebib) doesn't, enable this to export only the filename.
With nested collections, Zotero can be made to show references in 'deeper' collections in their parent collection, or only show references in collections that actually include them. Better BibTeX exports collections as you see them, so this setting controls both what Zotero shows and what is exported for nested collections.
Enables the Zotero-embedded web server. If you have Zotero standalone, it is always on, and this preference will not be shown. This option enables Cite as you Write and pull export.
If set, generates journal abbreviations on export using the Zotero journal abbreviator, according to the abbreviation style selected in the list below the checkbox.
Select the style for auto-abbreviation.
Determines when automatic exports are kicked off:
- Disabled: disable automatic exports (but still marks them when changes occur)
- On Change: export whenever a reference in the export changes/is added/is removed.
- When Idle: export marked collections when your computer is idle. You mostly want this if your computer is performance-constrained (aka slow)
Enables hardcore mode. You like Zotero in some ways, but really just want it to be a BibTeX manager. If you enable this, any BibTeX files you import will retain all the LaTeX commands they have, and marks the entry to be exported without any translation.
For those who are curious about what the "Clear/Generate BibTeX key" right-click options do, this will warn you if you are doing this on more than 10 (default) at the same time, to prevent your curiosity from changing all your citation keys at once.
This will generate more verbose logs. This really does affect performance, so only enable this if you're trying to diagnose a problem in Better BibTeX
If you enable this, the call number column in the Zotero reference list (if you have selected it to be shown) will display
the internal reference ID instead of the call number field. Only useful for debugging.
There have been occasions where Better BibTeX seemed to ignore keys you have specified manually by having bibtex: <whatever>
in the extra field of your reference. I haven't seen this in ages, but enabling this and then restarting
Zotero will force a re-scan to find them. This slows down startup tremendously if you have a big library. The checkbox
will automatically clear after restart.
These preferences can be changed in about:config only. Some of these are here because the feature is still in
progress, but there's generally very little reason to change these.
Number of seconds Better BibTeX should wait before auto exports are kicked off when auto-export is set to "When Idle" or "On Change". Defaults to 5 seconds.
How often the Better BibTeX database should be saved to disk. Defaults to once every 5 seconds. Note that your database is always saved when your computer goes idle, or when you exit Zotero.
Reset the cache after the next N restarts. Defaults to 0. I use this for debugging. Don't use this.
On upgrading to a new version, Better BibTeX drops your cache to make sure you get the latest export implementation. For large libraries, this may be undesirable because Better BibTeX updates frequently, and export on an empty cache is really slow. If you have more than N entries in your cache, you will be asked if you want to keep the cache (and forego the benefits of the upgrade until the relevant entries change to change their cache). Defaults to 1000,
You really want this on. Better BibTeX has a very involved process of generating BibTeX output, and the caching mechanism makes sure it doesn't happen any more frequently than necessary.
Enables csquotes support.
Switches between babel and polyglossia, except I haven't gotten around to polyglossia yet.
list of words to skip in title when generating citation keys
Unit tests to run
Snippet of javascript to run after each BibTeX generation.
Export JabRef groups for collections.
The Better BibTeX date parser uses locale hints when provided with ambiguous dates such as 1/2/2008 (which is either 1st
of February, or 2nd of Januari). Better BibTeX will first look at the language specified in your reference and fall back
to your system locale otherwise, but if you add a language code here, this will be used as a fallback. I use en-GB
here myself as I generally prefer the en-US locale for my systems, but not the wacky idea of date formatting that comes
with it.
Automatically titlecase English titles on export
List of words to keep lowercase when applying title casing
List of words to keep uppercase when applying title casing