Copying Bib Item Lists

BibCompanion can copy a list of bib keys or bib items for other software such as text editors and word processors. A bib key list is used for a citation marker in an article, while a bib item list is used for a bibliography list. There are 3 formats in each of the list. You can choose default action for drag & drop or copy/paste action in the general setting of the preferences.

To copy items with specific format, choose [Edit - Copy Bib Keys as] or [Edit - Copy Bib List as] menus.

Note for Japanese Users: Some of Japanese text editors can not handle a backslash (‘\’) characters as a TeX command character (they may treat it as a yen mark (‘¥’). In this case you should convert backslashes to yen marks. Please check corresponding checkbox in the general setting of the preferences.

This section contains the following topics.

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Copy as a Bib Key List

A bib key is an identifier of a bib item. This function copies bib keys of selected items for other applications. There are three formats as follows.

\cite{bibkey}

This function append a TeX citation command (such as “\cite{NakaharaH:2004}”) at the dropped (or cursor) position. If you copy plural items, pasted string may be like a “\cite{NakaharaH:2004, TanakaA:2002}”. It is useful to use BibCompanion with BibTeX/LaTeX to paste a cite marker in an article. Please refer to a LaTeX book for ‘\cite’ command.

This is the default action when you drag & drop or copy/paste a bib item from the item list to a text editor or a word processor.

\nocite{bibkey}

This is similar to the above function except for the associated TeX command (\nocite{}). Please refer to a LaTeX book for ‘\nocite’ command.

‘bibkey’

This function only copies a bibkey (or list of bibkeys) such as “NakaharaH:2004” or “NakaharaH:2004, TanakaA:2002”.

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Copy as a Bib Item List

This function copies a bib item list, that is a list of references that contains bibliography information, of selected items for other applications. The format of each item can be customized in the bib type setting of the preferences. There are three formats as follows.

\bibitem List

This function copies a list for LaTeX references list. For example, it copies like

\bibitem{JoseYacamanM:1993} M. Jos{\'e}-Yacam{\'a}n, M. Miki-Yoshida, L. Rend{\'o}n and J.G. Santiesteban, APL {\bf 62} (1993) 202.

\bibitem{HurleDTJ:1994} Ed. by D.T.J. Hurle, {\it ``Thin Films and Epitaxy''}, (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1994).

\bibitem{IchimiyaA:1991} A. Ichimiya, in: {\it ``The Structure of Surfaces, Vol.~III''}, Ed. by S.Y. Tong, M.A. van Hove, K. Takayanagi and X.D. Xie, (Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg, 1991) p.~162.

It should be placed in a {thebibliography} environment. Please refer to a LaTeX book for {thebibliography} environment.

HTML Text List

This function copies a list as a HTML text. The output of this function depends on “Use ‘bibkey’ as an Index” setting of the preferences. If this is not checked, copied text is as follows.

<ol>

<li style="margin-bottom:0.8ex;">M. Jos&eacute;-Yacam&aacute;n, M. Miki-Yoshida, L. Rend&oacute;n and J.G. Santiesteban, APL <b>62</b> (1993) 202.</li>

<li style="margin-bottom:0.8ex;">Ed. by D.T.J. Hurle, <i>&ldquo;Thin Films and Epitaxy&rdquo;</i>, (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1994).</li>

<li style="margin-bottom:0.8ex;">A. Ichimiya, in: <i>&ldquo;The Structure of Surfaces, Vol. III&rdquo;</i>, Ed. by S.Y. Tong, M.A. van Hove, K. Takayanagi and X.D. Xie, (Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg, 1991) p. 162.</li>

</ol>

On the other hand, if the “Use ‘bibkey’ as an Index” setting of the preferences is checked, copied text is as follows.

<ul style="list-style-type:none;">

<li style="margin-bottom:0.8ex;text-indent:-2em;"><b>[JoseYacamanM:1993]</b> M. Jos&eacute;-Yacam&aacute;n, M. Miki-Yoshida, L. Rend&oacute;n and J.G. Santiesteban, APL <b>62</b> (1993) 202.</li>

<li style="margin-bottom:0.8ex;text-indent:-2em;"><b>[HurleDTJ:1994]</b> Ed. by D.T.J. Hurle, <i>&ldquo;Thin Films and Epitaxy&rdquo;</i>, (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1994).</li>

<li style="margin-bottom:0.8ex;text-indent:-2em;"><b>[IchimiyaA:1991]</b> A. Ichimiya, in: <i>&ldquo;The Structure of Surfaces, Vol. III&rdquo;</i>, Ed. by S.Y. Tong, M.A. van Hove, K. Takayanagi and X.D. Xie, (Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg, 1991) p. 162.</li>

</ul>

The output format conforms to XHTML 1.1 (generally, it can be used with HTML 4.0 etc.). You need to append HTML headers etc. because those are not included in a copied text. For example of XHTML 1.1, make a file as

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head><title>Title of the List</title></head>

<body>

<h1>Title of the List</h1>

–––––> Paste the Above List in HTML format

</body>

</html>

and save in UTF-8 encoding (encoding is specified in the top line) obtains a complete XHTML source file.

As shown in the above example, TeX commands are converted into HTML commands as possible. However, not all TeX commands are supported. Unsupported commands will be shown as ‘{&unknown;}’ (this is in HTML style but not displayed in browser correctly). In some cases, converted representation is like ‘&#x2113;’ (‘ℓ’). Please note that not all browser can display these kind of letters as you expected.

Text (RTF) List

This function copies a list as a RTF text. As same as HTML list case, the output of this function depends on “Use ‘bibkey’ as an Index” setting of the preferences. If this is not checked, copied text is as follows.

  1. M. José-Yacamán, M. Miki-Yoshida, L. Rendón and J.G. Santiesteban, APL 62 (1993) 202.
  2. Ed. by D.T.J. Hurle, “Thin Films and Epitaxy”, (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1994).
  3. A. Ichimiya, in: “The Structure of Surfaces, Vol. III”, Ed. by S.Y. Tong, M.A. van Hove, K. Takayanagi and X.D. Xie, (Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg, 1991) p. 162.

On the other hand, if the “Use ‘bibkey’ as an Index” setting of the preferences is checked, copied text is as follows.

If the target application can not handle a RTF text, text styles such as bold face etc. are ignored. The copied text is in unicode encoding, therefore, if it contains letters with diacritical marks, special letters, or chinese characters, text editors that can not handle unicode characters may not treat them correctly. At present, we verified that Apple Pages (iWork) and Microsoft Word 2004 can handle it correctly.

Only a part of TeX commands are converted into unicode expression. Unsupported TeX commands will be converted as ‘{&unknown;}’ or ‘&#x2113;’.

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