Feature Request: Ability to alias author names

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ykl
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2022 4:32 pm

Feature Request: Ability to alias author names

Post by ykl »

Hello!

Is there a way to tell Bookends that multiple author names are actually all the same person? Unfortunately, in my field, authors and publications aren't always consistent in formatting author names exactly the same. So, for example, a hypothetical author named Jóhn D. Smith may end up being listed in different publications as:

Jóhn D. Smith
John Smith
Jóhn Smith
John D. Smith
J. D. Smith
J. Smith
...
etc.

I moved from Papers to Bookends many many years ago and have never looked back, but one feature I do miss from Papers was the ability to group all of the versions of "Jóhn D. Smith" above so that when I typed any of the above into the author field, such that the application would know that they all map back to "Jóhn D. Smith" and would replace whichever name variant I typed in with the "canonical" version.

Thanks so much!
Jon
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Re: Feature Request: Ability to alias author names

Post by Jon »

Bookends has a similar ability, but probably does it differently than Papers did. Bookends uses Term Lists to support autocompletion of author names. In the Term List you can merge multiple examples of the same name under one. This is done by dragging and dropping the aliases onto the name you want keep. Now all references containing those aliases use that name instead. You can try this on a copy of your library first to see how it works.

Jon
Sonny Software
ykl
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2022 4:32 pm

Re: Feature Request: Ability to alias author names

Post by ykl »

Ah, perfect, that’s exactly what I’m looking for! Thanks a ton!
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