[Tex/LaTex] Abbreviate only middle names in biblatex

acronymsbiberbiblatex

I know of the option firstinits=true to abbreviate the first and all middle names in biblatex. What I would like to achieve is to only abbreviate the middle names. So e.g. author = {Smith, John Ethan Jacob} should be printed as Smith, John E. J.

Please see the MWE based on the answer of Jonathan from this post at the end of this question. I get the following output:

[SD95] Smith, John E. J./Doe, Jain L. Some book title. A Publisher, 1995.

But what I would like to see as output is:

[SD95] Smith, John E. J. ; Doe, Jain L: Some book title. A Publisher, 1995.

The ; between the author names and the : between the author names and the book title are specific to the bib style (custom made) I use. But the solution below doesn't respect this custom style. Any idea how to achieve the desired abbreviation, but don't loose the bib style?

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=din, autocite=footnote]{biblatex}

\begin{filecontents*}{bibliography.bib}
@BOOK{SD1995,
  author = {Smith, John Ethan Jacob and Doe, Jain Lauren},
  title = {Some book title},
  year = {1995},
  publisher = {A Publisher}
}
\end{filecontents*}

\addbibresource{bibliography.bib}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\def\bibnamedelima{ }%
\def\bibnamedelimb{ }%
\DeclareNameFormat{author}{%
  \ifblank{#5}{}{#5\addspace}% prefix if applicable
  #1% last name
  \edef\firstname{#3}%
  \ifblank{#3}{}{\addcomma\addspace\expandafter\first{\firstname}}%
  \ifthenelse{\value{listcount}<\value{liststop}}%
   {\addslash}{}%
}

\DeclareNameFormat{labelname}{%
  \ifblank{#5}{}{#5\addspace}% prefix if applicable
  #1% last name
  \edef\firstname{#3}%
  \ifblank{#3}{}{\addcomma\addspace\expandafter\first{\firstname}}%
  \ifthenelse{\value{listcount}<\value{liststop}}%
   {\addslash}{}%
}

\makeatletter
\def\@empty{}
\def\first#1{\expandafter\@first#1 \@nil}
\def\@first#1 #2\@nil{#1\addspace%
  \if\relax\detokenize{#2}\relax\else\@initials#2\@nil\fi}
\def\initials#1{\expandafter\@initials#1 \@nil}
\def\@initials#1 #2\@nil{%
  \initial{#1}%
  \def\NextName{#2}%
  \ifx\@empty\NextName\relax%
  \else\@initials#2\@nil\fi}
\def\initial#1{\expandafter\@initial#1\@nil}
\def\@initial#1#2\@nil{#1.\addspace}
\makeatother



\begin{document}
\null
\vfill

How the citation look like: \cite{SD1995}

\clearpage
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Edit
Please look here for the din style I'm using in the MWE. With this style I get two white spaces between the first author and the separating ;, when I use the modification by Andrew Swann. Without the modification there is only one white space. I'm now looking for a solution to this problem.

Best Answer

Here is something less invasive than the solution you have tried. It relies on adjusting the macro \mkbibnamegiven which is called to format the first and middle names rather than completely rewriting the name format:

Sample output

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=alphabetic,autocite=footnote]{biblatex}

\begin{filecontents*}{bibliography.bib}
@BOOK{SD1995,
  author = {Smith, John Ethan Jacob and Doe, Jain Lauren},
  title = {Some book title},
  year = {1995},
  publisher = {A Publisher}
}
\end{filecontents*}

\addbibresource{bibliography.bib}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\renewcommand*{\mkbibnamegiven}[1]{\edef\firstname{#1}\expandafter\first{\firstname}}

\def\bibnamedelima{ }%
\def\bibnamedelimb{ }%

\makeatletter
\def\@empty{}
\def\first#1{\expandafter\@first#1 \@nil}
\def\@first#1 #2\@nil{#1\addspace%
  \if\relax\detokenize{#2}\relax\else\@initials#2\@nil\fi}
\def\initials#1{\expandafter\@initials#1 \@nil}
\def\@initials#1 #2\@nil{%
  \initial{#1}%
  \def\NextName{#2}%
  \ifx\@empty\NextName\relax%
  \else\bibinitdelim \@initials#2\@nil\fi}
\def\initial#1{\expandafter\@initial#1\@nil}
\def\@initial#1#2\@nil{#1\bibinitperiod}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
How the citations appear: \cite{SD1995}.

\printbibliography
\end{document}

Update with the din style you point to in your update you should add

\AtBeginBibliography{\renewcommand*{\multinamedelim}{\addsemicolon\addspace}}

to your preamble. The din style contains the definition

\renewcommand*{\multinamedelim}{\mbox{ }\addspace\addsemicolon\addspace}

which adds a single space before the semicolon. Another way to get a single space would be

\AtBeginBibliography{\renewcommand*{\multinamedelim}{\addspace;\addspace}}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] biblatex authoryear-comp and name aliases

Here is one approach which gives exactly the result you want. Put this in your biber.conf:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<config>
  <sourcemap>
    <maps datatype="bibtex" map_overwrite="1">
      <map maptype="field">
        <map_pair map_source="AUTHOR"/>
        <also_set map_field="SHORTAUTHOR" map_origfieldval="1"/>
        <also_set map_field="SORTNAME" map_origfieldval="1"/>
      </map>
      <map maptype="field">
        <map_pair map_source="SHORTAUTHOR" map_match="Doe,\s*J(?:\.|ohn)(?:[ -]*)(?:P\.|Paul)*" map_replace="Doe, John Paul"/>
        <map_pair map_source="SORTNAME" map_match="Doe,\s*J(?:\.|ohn)(?:[ -]*)(?:P\.|Paul)*" map_replace="Doe, John Paul"/>
      </map>
    </maps>
  </sourcemap>
</config>

This follows the new Biber 0.9.8 semantics for the maps - the maps are processed sequentially, each depending on the results of the previous. Within a map, you can also use multiple items but items within a map which change things should not rely on the results of other other changes within the map element. Use map elements to do the sequencing. So, this first copies AUTHOR to both SHORTAUTHOR and SORTNAME and then, after that, edits these two fields to regularise some specific names. Biber DEV PDF doc will be updated soon.

It's a rather hairy regular expression but they are incredibly useful for faking semantic equivalence. This essentially renders the Does into the canonical "Doe, John Paul" format so that Biber knows that they are the same person. It's probably possible to design a regular expression to make this not so name specific but that will depend in the idiosyncracies of the name formats. For example, you could remove all "-' characters in names and also, since you are using firstinits, force all names to initials only.

EDIT: There will be a simpler syntax in Biber 0.9.8 like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<config>
  <sourcemap>
    <maps datatype="bibtex" map_overwrite="1">
      <map>
        <map_step map_field_source="AUTHOR" map_match="Doe," map_final="1"/>
        <map_step map_field_set="SHORTAUTHOR" map_origfieldval="1"/>
        <map_step map_field_set="SORTNAME" map_origfieldval="1"/>
        <map_step map_field_source="SHORTAUTHOR" map_match="Doe,\s*J(?:\.|ohn)(?:[ -]*)(?:P\.|Paul)*" map_replace="Doe, John Paul"/>
        <map_step map_field_source="SORTNAME" map_match="Doe,\s*J(?:\.|ohn)(?:[ -]*)(?:P\.|Paul)*" map_replace="Doe, John Paul"/>
      </map>
    </maps>
  </sourcemap>
</config>

[Tex/LaTex] Biblatex / Biber full citation for first occurrence only

Using a modified tufte-common.def file you can create tufte-latex documents with biblatex. A limitation is that tufte-latex modifies footnotes. So biblatex features such as \smartcite inside footnotes and footnote detection with \iffootnote may not work as intended. Most of this has already been covered in another post.

As for the citation style, you can get most of the way there with some edits to the textcite bibliography macro and \smartcite. Both of these are defined in numeric.cbx.

\documentclass[nobib]{tufte-handout}
\usepackage{hyphenat}
\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=numeric,citetracker=true,autocite=footnote]{biblatex}

\makeatletter

% If not seen, avoid compact lists and print full citation
\renewbibmacro*{textcite}{%
  \ifciteseen
    {}
    {\clearfield{namehash}}%
  \iffieldequals{namehash}{\cbx@lasthash}
    {\multicitedelim}
    {\cbx@tempa
     \ifciteseen
       {\ifnameundef{labelname}
          {\printfield[citetitle]{labeltitle}}
          {\printnames{labelname}}}
       {\usedriver
          {\DeclareNameAlias{sortname}{default}%
           \clearfield{pages}%
           \clearfield{pagetotal}}
          {\thefield{entrytype}}}%
     \addspace\bibopenbracket}%
  \ifnumequal{\value{citecount}}{1}
    {\usebibmacro{prenote}}
    {}%
  \usebibmacro{cite}%
  \savefield{namehash}{\cbx@lasthash}%
  \gdef\cbx@tempa{\bibclosebracket\multicitedelim}}

% Make \smartcite like \textcite
\DeclareCiteCommand{\smartcite}[\iffootnote\mkbibbrackets\mkbibfootnote]
  {\let\cbx@tempa=\empty
   \undef\cbx@lasthash}
  {\usebibmacro{citeindex}%
   \usebibmacro{textcite}}
  {}
  {\usebibmacro{postnote}%
   \bibclosebracket}

\makeatother

\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
\begin{document}
One of the most prominent and distinctive features of this style is the
extensive use of sidenotes \autocites(See)()[10--15]{knuth:ct:a}[10]{companion}.
There is a wide margin to provide ample room for sidenotes and small figures
\autocite{knuth:ct:a,knuth:ct:b}. Any footnotes will automatically be converted to
sidenotes.\footnote{Results from \textcite{knuth:ct:a,knuth:ct:b,companion} showed
that...}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

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Some notes:

The autocite=footnote option setting makes \autocite use \smartcite as its backend citation command.
The \ifciteseen test needs citation tracking enabled. In the example global tracking is enabled via citetracker=true. Alternative settings are possible. Refer to the manual for details.
Full citations are printed with \usedriver. The first argument to this command allows you to hook code in before printing. This is a good place to suppress fields with \clearfield and friends. In the example, I suppress the pages and pagetotal fields to avoid confusion with page references in postnotes.
In numeric, \textcite generates compact citation lists. This complicates printing full citations. The edits to textcite take an easy way out by simply replacing the labelname or labeltitle with the full citation.
The numeric style isn't particularly suited to this customization. Refer to the verbose style or any of its variants for some better alternatives.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] biblatex authoryear-comp and name aliases

[Tex/LaTex] Biblatex / Biber full citation for first occurrence only

Related Question