Citation formats

[rwg]

In Papyrus it is possible to specify elements in a citation format that are to be included only under certain conditions. For example, if I want to have the translator of a book added in parentheses after the author's name only when applicable, it is possible to do so. But in Bookends the only way to do this seems to be to create a separate citation format, and if one were to do this for every contingency one would soon run out of user-defined formats.

Being new to Bookends, it is quite possible that I have missed something, so any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Rolf

[Shayne]

In Papyrus it is possible to specify elements in a citation format that are to be included only under certain conditions. For example, if I want to have the translator of a book added in parentheses after the author's name only when applicable, it is possible to do so. But in Bookends the only way to do this seems to be to create a separate citation format, and if one were to do this for every contingency one would soon run out of user-defined formats.
Rolf

Hi Rolf,
Thank you for articulating something that I too was having trouble with. I want to include reprint information (place, publisher and date) as well as the name of the translator for translated works and perhaps even the original title and publication dates (and data). I have not found an easy way of doing this, especially as--as you point out--one would soon run out of user-defineable fields/types. Here I would like to point out that the latest version of Sente (sorry) offers unlimited user-defineable fields, and I wonder if Bookends could not do something similar. This seems to be the only way to offer ultimate flexibility.

The other related question I have is how to get Bookends to alter punctuation if the following field is blank. There have been a number of times when I would have liked to use a period if the next field is blank, and a comma if the field contains data.
E.g.: Louvain-Paris: Peeters Press, 1988.
And Louvain-Paris: Peeters Press.
The only difference is that the second entry contains no date (i.e., a reprint date), and therefore I would use a period. I use a comma as the first entry contains a date after the publisher. Is there any way to control this without having separate types set up? Using separate types for such trivial things is very quickly going to see me--and I suspect many of us--run out of user-defineable types (unless we move to Sente).

Kindest regards,
Shayne

[Jon]

The issue here really isn't the number of Type (or of fields), but how Bookends handles formats in which a field is empty. It does so by using spaces as indicators as "markers" (or placeholders). The quote command ($) and force-quote command (`) often come in handy as well. In short, you can often use one format for multiple variations on a Type (one with reprint info, one without, for example). In the example you provided:

l: u$, $d`.`

would probably do the trick (the comma would be used if there was a date, but not if there was no date; the period at the end is forced).

For details, please refer to the User Guide (search for the TOC entry "When a Field is Empty").

Jon
Sonny Software

[Shayne]

l: u$, $d`.`

Thanks Jon. After having read the section on "When a Field is Empty" now at least three times, I think I am getting the hang of it.

Best,
Shayne