I exclusively work with latex, if there is a need to use Word etc I usually let someone else do the work - used Word once - never again, and I'm considering to do some extensive customization to it so it fits BibTeX better. Before doing this I would like to ask a few questions:
+ Is there something that I really shouldn't do?
+ Is there some way of exporting the changes so they can be backuped/moved to another computer/sent to a friend/colleague
I was thinking of changing reference types, field names/usage so that they matched what I need for BibTex, modifying the template (which obviously can be exported) --- I did this once many years ago but for some reason that I've now forgot managed to lose the preference file which resulted in a bibliography that was rather complicated to start using again. I just want to check and see what I need to do to make sure I don't repeat myself
I assume that there is no way to modifying how "required fields" works.
You can freely add/change reference types, and you can also change field names and assignments. However, I would try to use some of the basic fields in the same way Bookends uses them. Examples would be the fields that Bookends uses when you tell it to generate a book chapter from a book or an edited book (i.e. Editor, Author, Title, etc.)
It might make sense to explore the mapping that Bookends does when you use the add book chapter from reference function with a few test cases, so that you know what information gets put into what other fields.
This is what comes to my mind right now, but there might be other (edge) case scenarios that might be affected if you change many of the field assignments in Bookends…