[Tex/LaTex] bibliography author initial spacing

bibtexieeetranspacing

I am using the IEEE LaTeX bibliography style, and I want to make a small change to the format of authors' names. This is not actually for submission to the IEEE so changing the format won't be a problem.

Right now, their format produces a space between each initial of an authors first and middle name(s), in addition to the abbreviating period. That is, "John Frederik Camelot Smith" (I made that up if you can believe it) gets formatted as "J. F. C. Smith". I would like it if the only space in that string were the one between the last initial and the last name, i.e. "J.F.C. Smith".

Now, IEEE provides a special bibliography entry, @IEEEtranBSTCTL that allows you to modify some aspects of their formatting, and one of the member fields is CTLname_format_string, which dictates the formatting of the author name field. By default it is:

CTLname_format_string = "{f.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}",

I've tried playing around with this, changing the non-breaking spaces to small spaces (\,) or negative spaces (\!), but everything I've tried seems to apply to all the spaces.

Can someone explain:

What the formatting of
CTLname_format_string means, i.e.
what are the f, vv, etc fields?
How to get the format that I'm
looking for, so that the only author
initial with a space after its
period would be the last one before
the last name, as follows:

"John Frederik Camelot Smith" -> "J.F.C. Smith"

"Jason Bourne" -> "J. Bourne"

— Additional Info —

If anyone wants to experiment with this and is unfamiliar with the IEEE .bib files, here's the quick run-down:

They're included with MikTex
distributions (at least they were
with mine)

Invoke them with:

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{IEEEabrv,your_bib_file_name}{}

To modify the formatting as I've been talking about you need to do three things:

Add the following entry to your bibliography (.bib file):

@IEEEtranBSTCTL{IEEEexample:BSTcontrol,
    CTLuse_article_number = "yes",
    CTLuse_paper = "yes",
    CTLuse_forced_etal = "no",
    CTLmax_names_forced_etal = "10",
    CTLnames_show_etal = "1",
    CTLuse_alt_spacing = "yes",
    CTLalt_stretch_factor = "4",
    CTLdash_repeated_names = "yes",
    CTLname_format_string = "{f.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}",
    CTLname_latex_cmd = "",
    CTLname_url_prefix = "[Online]. Available:"
}

If you're not also using the IEEEtran style, add the following to your preamble:

\makeatletter
\def\bstctlcite{\@ifnextchar[{\@bstctlcite}{\@bstctlcite[@auxout]}}
\def\@bstctlcite[#1]#2{\@bsphack
  \@for\@citeb:=#2\do{%
    \edef\@citeb{\expandafter\@firstofone\@citeb}%
    \if@filesw\immediate\write\csname #1\endcsname{\string\citation{\@citeb}}\fi}%
  \@esphack}
\makeatother

Add the following citation just after your \begin{document}:
```
\bstctlcite{IEEEexample:BSTcontrol}
```

— Update After Comment from Lockstep —

The following provides a minimal working example:

Main Latex file contents:

\documentclass[12pt, oneside, ]{report} 

% Define the IEEE citation control command (not necessary if using IEEEtran class)
\makeatletter
\def\bstctlcite{\@ifnextchar[{\@bstctlcite}{\@bstctlcite[@auxout]}}
\def\@bstctlcite[#1]#2{\@bsphack
  \@for\@citeb:=#2\do{%
    \edef\@citeb{\expandafter\@firstofone\@citeb}%
    \if@filesw\immediate\write\csname #1\endcsname{\string\citation{\@citeb}}\fi}%
  \@esphack}
\makeatother


% Begin Logical Document
\begin{document}
\bstctlcite{IEEEexample:BSTcontrol}

Here is an example citation \cite{smith2009pain}. 

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{IEEEabrv,keylatex}{}

% End Logical Document
\end{document}

Bib file contents (named keylatex.bib in this example):

@ARTICLE{smith2009pain,
  author = {John Frederik Camelot Smith and Jason Bourne},
  title = {{The Pain of Having a Foolish Name}},
  journal = {Journal of Modern Fiction},
  year = {2009},
  volume = {52},
  pages = {114},
  number = {1},
  issn = {0010-4620},
  publisher = {Grendel Publishing}
}

@IEEEtranBSTCTL{IEEEexample:BSTcontrol,
    CTLuse_article_number = "yes",
    CTLuse_paper = "yes",
    CTLuse_forced_etal = "no",
    CTLmax_names_forced_etal = "10",
    CTLnames_show_etal = "1",
    CTLuse_alt_spacing = "yes",
    CTLalt_stretch_factor = "4",
    CTLdash_repeated_names = "yes",
    CTLname_format_string = "{f.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}",
    CTLname_latex_cmd = "",
    CTLname_url_prefix = "[Online]. Available:"
}

When I compile the above with MikTex 2.8 using pdflatex and bibtex, I get "J. F. C. Smith and J. Bourne" for names when I want "J.F.C. Smith and J. Bourne" (notice the lack of spaces in "J.F.C.").

Best Answer

After reading section 5.4 ("Name formatting") of Designing BibTeX Styles, I tried CTLname_format_string = "{f{.}.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}" and succeeded. :-)

\documentclass[12pt, oneside, ]{article} 

\usepackage{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@ARTICLE{smith2009pain,
  author = {John Frederik Camelot Smith and Jason Bourne},
  title = {{The Pain of Having a Foolish Name}},
  journal = {Journal of Modern Fiction},
  year = {2009},
  volume = {52},
  pages = {114},
  number = {1},
  issn = {0010-4620},
  publisher = {Grendel Publishing}
}

@IEEEtranBSTCTL{IEEEexample:BSTcontrol,
    CTLuse_article_number = "yes",
    CTLuse_paper = "yes",
    CTLuse_forced_etal = "no",
    CTLmax_names_forced_etal = "10",
    CTLnames_show_etal = "1",
    CTLuse_alt_spacing = "yes",
    CTLalt_stretch_factor = "4",
    CTLdash_repeated_names = "yes",
    CTLname_format_string = "{f{.}.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}",
    CTLname_latex_cmd = "",
    CTLname_url_prefix = "[Online]. Available:"
}
\end{filecontents}

% Define the IEEE citation control command (not necessary if using IEEEtran class)
\makeatletter
\def\bstctlcite{\@ifnextchar[{\@bstctlcite}{\@bstctlcite[@auxout]}}
\def\@bstctlcite[#1]#2{\@bsphack
  \@for\@citeb:=#2\do{%
    \edef\@citeb{\expandafter\@firstofone\@citeb}%
    \if@filesw\immediate\write\csname #1\endcsname{\string\citation{\@citeb}}\fi}%
  \@esphack}
\makeatother


% Begin Logical Document
\begin{document}
\bstctlcite{IEEEexample:BSTcontrol}

Here is an example citation \cite{smith2009pain}. 

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{IEEEabrv,\jobname}{}

% End Logical Document
\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] BibTeX: How to get rid of a period after author initial

Thanks for posting the link to the .bst file. From an examination of the function format.names and some of the other main syntax blocks, it would appear that (i) the style file is programmed to expect that full first names, rather than just initials, are provided for all authors and (ii) a "dot" (.) is inserted between all blocks of the bib entry.

You have two options at this stage -- other than engaging in a major rewrite of parts of the .bst file:

change the entry's name field to author = "Beekman, George"
change the entry's name field to author = "Beekman, G" -- no trailing dot (because the style file will furnish the dot for you)

Personally, I would recommend you pursue the former option. While it's more work up front, there are two benefits as well: (a) you'll be in full compliance with the style of whatever journal is making you use the bibgen bibliography style, possibly earning you Brownie points with the journal editors :-), and (b) you'll only have to do this once. And, should you decide in the future to submit a paper to some other journal that also expects that full first names are provided for authors and editors, you'll be all-set.

For your reference, here's what the typeset entry looks like if the author's first name is entered as "George" (by the way, which language renders "February" as "únor"?):

enter image description here

\RequirePackage{filecontents}
\documentclass{article}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@ARTICLE{historie_kniha,
   author = {Beekman, George},
    title = "{I. O. Yarkovsky and the Discovery of `his' Effect}",
  journal = {Journal for the History of Astronomy},
     year = 2006,
    month = feb,
   volume = 37,
    pages = {71-86},
   adsurl = {http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006JHA....37...71B},
  adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\bibliographystyle{bibgen}
\begin{document}
\cite{historie_kniha}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] Problem with citing same author, different source

First, allow me define the problem properly. The problem is in IEEEtran bibliography, which the authors with same names are replaced with -------. As an illustration, when I regenerated your code I saw this:

It is resulted of IEEEtrans.bst style. To overcome this, you should define a IEEEtranBSTCTL entry in your bib database and change the default value for CTLdash_repeated_names like this:

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@IEEEtranBSTCTL{IEEEexample:BSTcontrol,
CTLdash_repeated_names= "no",
}
\end{filecontents}

So we can do this in the main file with Macro as follows:

\RequirePackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@IEEEtranBSTCTL{IEEEexample:BSTcontrol,
CTLdash_repeated_names= "no",
}

@TechReport{Shapiro1,
  author      = {Shapiro, M.},
  title       = {Development of the enthalpy storage materials, mixture of methyl stearate and methyl palmitate},
  institution = {Florida Solar Energy Center},
  year        = {1989},
}
@TechReport{Shapiro2,
  author      = {Shapiro, M.},
  title       = {Development of the enthalpy storage materials, mixture of capric acid and lauric acid with fire retardants},
  institution = {Florida Solar Energy Center},
  year        = {1989},
}
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass{IEEEtran}


\begin{document}

\bstctlcite{IEEEexample:BSTcontrol}

First one \cite{Shapiro1}. This is the second one \cite{Shapiro2}.


\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

And we active this change by \bstctlcite{IEEEexample:BSTcontrol} in our tex file main body. So the result would be as:

A Nasty Trick: A nasty trick is to add a \vspace{0mm} in the name of the author, e.g. \vspace{0mm}Shapiro. Of course it not recommended at all. I hope it helps.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] BibTeX: How to get rid of a period after author initial

[Tex/LaTex] Problem with citing same author, different source

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