[Tex/LaTex] Sort .bib file from within TexShop

bibtexsortingtexshop

Is there a way to sort a BibTeX file from within TexShop? For instance, I would like to have all items of type @proceedings at the end of the file, and the items otherwise sorted alphabetically (say by the name of the first author).

I'm not referring to sorting the references in a compiled document (using a .bst style), but rather the BibTeX entries themselves in a .bib source file.

I used to be able to do this on Windows using WinEdt. Can I achieve something similar in TexShop on Mac OS X?

Best Answer

TeXShop is a simple editor for Mac Systems. You are looking for a frontend for managing bib-files. This can be done by other programs. Here a small list:

JabRef -- platform independent
BibDesk -- only Mac
citavi -- only Windows
zotero -- platform independent, web application
mendeley -- platform independent

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[Tex/LaTex] How to change order of a bibliography style manually (bilingual bibliography)

With biblatex it's possible to fill a special field used for sorting names; with the standard BibTeX tools one can use

author={{\noop{ivanov}}\CYRI\cyrv\cyra\cyrn\cyro\cyrv, \CYRI\cyrv\cyra\cyrn},

having put in the document's preamble the definition

\newcommand{\noop}[1]{}

Of course it's possible to write anything one wants as the argument to \noop, for example a common prefix such as \noop{zzz-ivanov} would sort all Russian authors at the end.

[Tex/LaTex] Bibtex style help – alphabetical sort

Sorting of references is a job for the bibliography style file .bst. The bibliography style you are using cj.bst is set-up to not sort the references, or rather to print them in the order they are cited. \nocite{*} then gives the order they are listed in the bib file.

Reading the file cj.bst you can see that it has been generated by the makebst utility of custom-bib, plus a final bit of hand editing. Fortunately, the bst file tells us that custom-bib was provided with the options

 %% merlin.mbs  (with options: `seq-no,nm-rev,ed-rev,jnrlst,nmlm,x10,x0,m1,dt-beg,
 yr-par,xmth,yrp-x,vol-bf,vnum-x,volp-com,numser,edpar,blk-tit,in-x,pp,ed,abr,xedn,jabr')

The first option seq-no means that references are to be listed in the order they are cited. To effect sorting, we should reproduce this creation process without this first option, as sorting by author name is the default. This may accomplished by creating the file cjj.dbj:

\input docstrip

\preamble
----------------------------------------
*** cj with sort ***

\endpreamble

\postamble
End of customized bst file
\endpostamble

\keepsilent

\askforoverwritefalse
\def\MBopts{\from{merlin.mbs}{%
nm-rev,ed-rev,jnrlst,nmlm,x10,x0,m1,dt-beg,yr-par,xmth,yrp-x,vol-bf,vnum-x,volp-com,numser,edpar,blk-tit,in-x,pp,ed,abr,xedn,jabr  }}
\generate{\file{cjj.bst}{\MBopts}}
\endbatchfile

and running latex on this file to produce cjj.bst. Using this style as follows

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
\nocite{*}
\bibliographystyle{cjj}
\bibliography{bib}
\end{document}

with bib.bib containing

@Article{test,
  author =   {Author, First},
  title =    {Title},
  journal =  {Jour},
  year =     2000
}

@Article{type,
  author =   {Aardvark, New},
  title =    {Titling},
  journal =  {J},
  year =     2002
}

produces

Sample output

with the references sorted by author.

This may be good enough for your purposes. As mentioned above, the file cj.bst contains a couple of edits by hand to change some fine details of the printing of certain references. These are clearly flagged in that file, and it should not be too hard to implement those changes should you be so inclined.

Best Answer

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