Bibliography Style for Multiple Authors – Comprehensive Guide Using Biblatex and Biber

Question

I want capital letters if there are more than 3 authors with a + at the end. I use Overleaf.

Bibliography setup:

\usepackage[
  backend=biber,
  style=alphabetic,
  maxbibnames=10,
]{biblatex}
\title{A bibLaTeX example}
\addbibresource{sample.bib}

Bib file:

@book{myBook,
    author    = "Michel Goossens and Frank Mittelbach and Alexander Samarin and John Doe",
    title     = "The \LaTeX\ Companion",
    year      = "1993",
    publisher = "Addison-Wesley",
    address   = "Reading, Massachusetts",
    keywords  = "myBook"
}

Outcome:

[Goo+93] Michel Goossens, Frank Mittelbach, Alexander Samarin, and TimTester.The LATEX Companion. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1993.

Prefered Outcome:

[GMS+93] Michel Goossens, Frank Mittelbach, Alexander Samarin, and TimTester.The LATEX Companion. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1993.

Difference:
[Goo+93] vs. [GMS+93]

Answer 1

Try minalphanames=3.

biblatex will use minalphanames many names from the list if it is longer than maxalphanames. The default value for maxalphanames is 3 and for minalphanames it is 1. That means that a list of more than three authors is shortened to one author plus "et al."/"+". With minalphanames=3, such a list is shortened to three authors plus "et al."/"+".

\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage[
  backend=biber,
  style=alphabetic,
  maxbibnames=10,
  minalphanames=3,
]{biblatex}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{myBook,
    author    = {Michel Goossens and Frank Mittelbach
                 and Alexander Samarin and John Doe},
    title     = {The \LaTeX\ Companion},
    year      = {1993},
    publisher = {Addison-Wesley},
    address   = {Reading, Massachusetts},
    keywords  = {myBook}
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}

\begin{document}
Lorem \autocite{myBook,sigfridsson,worman}

\printbibliography
\end{document}