A dot at the end of a title leads to double dots in the bibliography

[Chris]

Hi Jon,

The titles of a PubMed search are imported with a trailing dot. This leads to double dots in bibliography formats, if the title is separated from the following information with a dot. The automatic replacement of duplicate characters when one or more fields are missing obviously does not work.

I see three options:
1. Is it possible to remove the trailing dot during import?
2. Is it possible to change the bibliography format to suppress the dot?
3. Is it possible to search and replace the trailing dot in the title with an empty string? Find and Replace will remove all dots, including the dots in the middle of a title.

Many thanks in advance!
Chris

[Jon]

Where is the second period coming from? If it's in the body of the text (i.e. outside of the citation) Bookends doesn't know it's there. In any case, you can edit the format so that the title isn't terminated with a period.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Chris]

The problem is that references imported from PubMed have a trailing dot, references imported from EMBASE do not. If I remove the dot in bibliography format, it is missing in EMBASE references. I would like to find an option that respects both title formats or find a simple solution to remove the dot in all titles with a trailing dot.

Is it possible to perform a Regex Search and Replace on the title, e.g. :%s/\.$//g in Vim?

Chris

[Jon]

Bookends should replace .. with ., as long as they are in the citation and not typed by you in the body of the text. What do you see in the formatted view display pane at the bottom of the library window?

Jon
Sonny Software

[Chris]

It would be preferable to illustrate this issue with an example.

Within the Bookends library DemoLibrary.bdb, there are two references imported from distinct databases: https://file.io/TnzwriKPyYPb

• The reference by Baird et al. was retrieved from EMBASE in RIS format.

• The reference by Bergmeister et al. was retrieved from PubMed in nbib format.

Upon selecting the provided bibliography format "Harvard.fmt," the Bergmeister reference exhibits two dots following the title, whereas the Baird reference shows only a single dot.

Switching to the provided bibliography format "Science.fmt," the Bergmeister reference now ends with a single dot in the title, while the Baird reference lacks any punctuation.

I prefer all references to include a single trailing dot.

Best,
Chris

[Jon]

I can't reproduce this problem with my library, and the linked file in your post appears to have been deleted. Please compress the library (in the Finder) and attach it to an email to support@sonnysoftware.com.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Chris]

I have sent you the demo database file along with 4 screenshots showing the problem.

Chris

[Jon]

Yes, and I replied. If you didn't see that, please check your junk folder.

Jon
Sonny Software