Sonny Software

I'd like to know if there's a way to control the inclusion of middle names? I mean, at the moment we get to use either initials or full name, but is there a way to use full name WITHOUT middle names (or have them in abbreviated form)?

Here's the situation. I like to enter middle names into the database to help identifying the authors and to accommodate various bibliography formats. In most cases, it's perfect when Bookends uses just initials for first and middle names. So for example authors with similar names:

Smith, Paul Aldus
Smith, Peter Arthur Gaius

Come out nicely, neatly and clearly distinct in the bibliography:

Smith, P.A.
Smith, P.A.G.

But now I ran into a journal that wants the authors listed in the bibliography SURNAME, FIRSTNAME without abbreviating. But the middle names make it messy. It's especially bad, because the journal wants to reverse the order of the names between the first author and the rest. So if I choose the option "Full name" I get looong entries with several authors like:

Smith, Paul Aldus and Peter Arthur Gaius Smith (1976) Xxxxx…

So, is there a way to either exclude the middle names (i.e. print only the first one of the names listed after surname). Like:

Smith, Paul (omit rest)
Smith, Peter (omit rest)

And so entries with several authors would be something like:

Smith, Paul and Peter Smith (1976) Xxxxx…

I'm afraid not. As you noted, Bookends can deal with initials intelligently. However, if you tell it to use the full first name(s) (forenames) it treats them as a black box. It won't try to parse these (which would be a very difficult task, given all the possible permutations as well as differences between languages).

Jon
Sonny Software