[Tex/LaTex] Bold labels and more with custom bibtex bst and author-year

bibtexnatbib

I have the requirement to print the labels for the entries in the bibliography in bold, replace the , between multiple authors (if any) with ; and end them with :. The following picture is an example from my guidelines:
enter image description here
I suppose that should be possible by modifying my custom .bst file and especially the format.names function.
Based on this and this I came up with the following function:

FUNCTION {makebold}{
{ duplicate$ empty$
    { pop$ "" }
    { "\textbf{" swap$ * "}" * }
  if$ 
}

However, when I add it to my bst file I only get compilation errors without even calling the function, just by copying it into the file.
This is my current format.names function.

FUNCTION {format.names}
{ 'bibinfo :=
  duplicate$ empty$ 'skip$ {
  's :=
  "" 't :=
  #1 'nameptr :=
  s num.names$ 'numnames :=
  numnames 'namesleft :=
    { namesleft #0 > }
    { s nameptr
      "{vv~}{ll}{, jj}{, f{.}.}"
      format.name$
      bibinfo bibinfo.check
      't :=
      nameptr #1 >
        {
          nameptr #2
          #1 + =
          numnames #2
          > and
            { "others" 't :=
              #1 'namesleft := }
            'skip$
          if$
          namesleft #1 >
            { ", " * t * }
            {
              s nameptr "{ll}" format.name$ duplicate$ "others" =
                { 't := }
                { pop$ }
              if$
              "," *
              t "others" =
                {
                  " " * bbl.etal *
                }
                { " " * t * }
              if$
            }
          if$
        }
        't
      if$
      nameptr #1 + 'nameptr :=
      namesleft #1 - 'namesleft :=
    }
  while$
  } if$
}

I have no experience with bst files at all, but need this fixed, because my instructor is already complaining that I should use Word instead of LaTeX and he will force me to migrate my paper if I can't sort out his beloved bibliography style 🙁

It would be really nice if someone could help me print my entries the way they should be!
Last remark: don't know if that's relevant, but the names should not be bold in the text like when I'm using \citep etc.

Update: I've managed (with pure trial and error) to get the labels bold (I had to rename the function to bolden instead of makebold, don't know why) and replace the comma between authors with a semicolon. What's still missing is the final colon between the author list and the title.
My current format.names looks like that:

FUNCTION {format.names}
{ 'bibinfo :=
  duplicate$ empty$ 'skip$ {
  's :=
  "" 't :=
  #1 'nameptr :=
  s num.names$ 'numnames :=
  numnames 'namesleft :=
    { namesleft #0 > }
    { s nameptr
      "{vv~}{ll}{, jj}{, f{.}.}"
      format.name$ bolden
      bibinfo bibinfo.check
      't :=
      nameptr #1 >
        {
          nameptr #2
          #1 + =
          numnames #2
          > and
            { "others" 't :=
              #1 'namesleft := }
            'skip$
          if$
          namesleft #1 >
            { "; " * t * }
            {
              s nameptr "{ll}" format.name$ duplicate$ "others" =
                { 't := }
                { pop$ }
              if$
              "" *
              t "others" =
                {
                  " " * bbl.etal bolden *
                }
                { "; " * t * }
              if$
            }
          if$
        }
        't
      if$
      nameptr #1 + 'nameptr :=
      namesleft #1 - 'namesleft :=
    }
  while$
  } if$
}

Best Answer

Here is a code using biblatex that seems to fulfill the requirements:

        \documentclass[german]{article}%mkbib
        \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
        \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
        \usepackage{lmodern}
        \usepackage{babel}%
        \usepackage{csquotes}
        \usepackage{xpatch}
        \usepackage[backend=biber, style=authoryear, firstinits, mergedate=false]{biblatex}

        \addbibresource{marcedb.bib}
        %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
        \renewcommand*{\multinamedelim}{\addsemicolon\space}
        \renewcommand*{\subtitlepunct}{\addcolon\space}
        \renewcommand*{\newunitpunct}{\addcomma\space}
        \renewcommand*{\finentrypunct}{\addperiod}
        \renewcommand*{\revsdnamepunct}{\addcomma\space}%
        \renewcommand*{\finalnamedelim}{\multinamedelim}
        \renewcommand*{\mkbibnamelast}[1]{\textsc{#1}}%
        %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
        \DeclareNameAlias{sortname}{last-first}
        \DeclareNameFormat{last-first}{%
          \iffirstinits
            {\mkbibbold{\usebibmacro{name:last-first}{#1}{#4}{#5}{#7}}}%
            {\mkbibbold{\usebibmacro{name:last-first}{#1}{#3}{#5}{#7}}}%
          \usebibmacro{name:andothers}}

        \renewcommand*{\labelnamepunct}{\bfseries\addcolon\space}

        \renewbibmacro*{date+extrayear}{}%

        \renewbibmacro*{date}{%
        \mkbibparens{\printdate}}%

        \renewbibmacro*{issue+date}{%
                \printtext{\usebibmacro{date}}
                \setunit*{\addcomma\space}
                \printfield{issue}
         \newunit}

        \renewbibmacro*{series+number}{%
         \addcomma\space
         \iffieldundef{series}{}{\printtext[parens]{\printfield{series}%
          \setunit*{\addsemicolon\space}%
          \printfield{number}}}%
          \newunit}

        \renewbibmacro*{publisher+location+date}{%
          \printlist{location}%
          \iflistundef{publisher}{}%
          {\addspace\printtext{u.a.:}}
          \printlist{publisher}%
          \addspace%
          \usebibmacro{date}%
          \newunit}

        \xpatchbibmacro{byeditor+others}%
        {\usebibmacro{byeditor+othersstrg}%
             \setunit{\addspace}%
             \printnames[byeditor]{editor}%
             \clearname{editor}%
             \newunit}%
        {\printnames[byeditor]{editor}%
             \clearname{editor}%
             \setunit{\addspace}
             \mkbibparens{Ed\addperiod}%
             \newunit}%

        \xpatchbibdriver{inbook}{%
          \newunit\newblock
        \usebibmacro{maintitle+booktitle}%
          \newunit\newblock
          \usebibmacro{byeditor+others}}%
          {%
          \iffieldundef{bybookauthor}{}%
         { \newunit\newblock}%
          \usebibmacro{byeditor+others}%
          \setunit{\addcolon\space}\newblock
          \usebibmacro{maintitle+booktitle}}%
          {}{}%

        \renewbibmacro*{journal+issuetitle}{%
          \usebibmacro{journal}%
          \setunit*{\addcomma\space}%
          \iffieldundef{series}
            {}
            {\newunit
             \printfield{series}%
             \setunit{\addspace}}%
          \usebibmacro{volume+number+eid}%
          \setunit{\addspace}%
          \usebibmacro{issue+date}%
          \setunit{\addcolon\space}%
          \usebibmacro{issue}%
          \newunit}

            \begin{document}

             \nocite{*}
              \printbibliography

            \end{document}

and the result: enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to customize a .bst bibliographic style created with custom-bib for dealing with entries with no year and/or no author

To start, there are several things wrong with your bib file. Following the BibTeX manual, the book entry requires year, and author or editor. So I suggest to turn the first three entries into manual, which just requires title.
For those manuals, in particular when the author is missing, one should provide a key entry that BibTeX can use to sort the entries, and that is sometimes shown instead of the author (depends on the style).
I would also change the publisher fields of the manuals into organization fields, as those are optional fields of manual, while publisher is not.

The resulting database would then look like:

@manual{GAMSCPLEX,
key = {GAMS/CPLEX},
organization = {GAMS Development Corporation},
title = {{GAMS/CPLEX} 10 Solver Manual},
url = {http://www.gams.com/dd/docs/solvers/cplex.pdf}
},
@manual{GAMSSBB02,
key = {GAMS/SBB},
address = {Washington, DC},
organization = {GAMS Development Corporation},
title = {{GAMS/SBB} Solver Manual},
url = {http://www.gams.com/dd/docs/solvers/sbb.pdf},
year = {2002}
},
@manual{GAMSCONOPT,
key = {GAMS/CONOPT},
address = {Bagsvaerd},
author = {Drud, A.},
organization = {{ARKI} Consulting and Development},
title = {{GAMS/CONOPT} Solver Manual},
url = {http://www.gams.com/dd/docs/solvers/conopt.pdf}
},
@article{Chou2006,
author = {Chou, C. Y. and Chen, C. H.},
journal = {Expert Systems with Applications},
number = {2},
pages = {233--242},
title = {Economic design of variable sampling intervals {$T^2$} control charts using genetic algorithms},
volume = {30},
year = {2006}
},
@article{DRUZOVEC98,
address = {Ljubljana (Slovenija-Slovenia)},
author = {Dru\v{z}ovec, M. and \v{S}ostar, A. and Godina, A.},
journal = {Strojni{\v{s}}ki Vestnik-Journal of Mechanical Engineering},
number = {1-2},
pages = {29--34},
title = {{MPC} process control procedure},
volume = {44},
year = {1998}
}

Regarding the empty parentheses for non-existing years I have three suggestions:

Remove the yr-par option from your dbj file to remove all parentheses around years. (maybe not an option for you)
Just provide a year! If you use a specific version of, say, GAMS/CPLEX, look up its release date, and use that. It is reasonable to assume that the manual was released alongside the software release. (maybe not an option for you)
bst hackery: Although year is an optional field of manual, your style file does not check properly if the year is present. This is a bug in custom-bib. To circumvent it, add the indicated five lines to your style file, in function format.date:
```
FUNCTION {format.date}
{ year "year" bibinfo.check duplicate$ empty$
    {
    }
    'skip$
  if$
  extra.label *
  before.all 'output.state :=
  duplicate$ empty$     %% added
  { pop$ "{}" }         %% added
  {                     %% added
  " (" swap$ * ")" *
  }                     %% added
  if$                   %% added
}
```
In principle, this could be added to merlin.mbs, to fix all derived styles. With this hack, and the proposed changes to your database, I get:

[Tex/LaTex] Apalike but sort by last name of first author and year

With a bit of playing around it is possible to get apalike.bst to sort entries only by the first author and then directly year and title.

The procedure to modify apalike.bst is as follows.

Locate apalike.bst on your machine. You can do this by typing kpsewhich apalike.bst into the command line/terminal. Alternatively, obtain a copy of the file from CTAN http://mirrors.ctan.org/biblio/bibtex/base/apalike.bst
Copy the file to a location where TeX can find it. The document directory will do fine. See also https://texfaq.org/FAQ-inst-wlcf
Rename the file to apalike-onesort.bst, say (the license of apalike.bst requires you to change the name if you modify the file)

Find FUNCTION {sort.format.names} (ll. 914-934) and replace the entire function with the much shorter

FUNCTION {sort.format.names}
{ 's :=
  s num.names$ #0 >
    { s #1 "{vv{ } }{ll{ }}{  f{ }}{  jj{ }}" format.name$ sortify }
    { "" }
  if$
}

Add a comment with your name, the current date and a short description of the changes to the top of the file.
Use \bibliographystyle{apalike-onesort} instead of \bibliographystyle{apalike} in your document.

As alternative for steps 1 to 5 you can obtain the patched version of the file at https://gist.github.com/moewew/952669080e9cbc20f987d3ed42cf6606

With the new apalike-onesort.bst your MWE produces a bibliography sorted only by first author, then year and then title.

If you want to sort all one-author items first, then all two-author items and finally all three-or-more-author items, replace the function with

FUNCTION {sort.format.names}
{ 's :=
  s num.names$ #0 >
    {
       s #1 "{vv{ } }{ll{ }}{  f{ }}{  jj{ }}" format.name$ sortify
       s num.names$
       duplicate$ #3 <
         { int.to.str$ * }
         {
           pop$
           "3" *
         }
       if$
    }
    { "" }
  if$
}

this adds "1", "2" or "3" after the author name for sorting and forces the desired scheme.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to customize a .bst bibliographic style created with custom-bib for dealing with entries with no year and/or no author

[Tex/LaTex] Apalike but sort by last name of first author and year

Related Question