Sonny Software

After making some adjustments to "MLA 8th Edition.fmt" I decided that I had better back up my version of it and created a new format that duplicated the existing one. Something seems to have gone wrong as a result of this change, and now Bookends seems not to be parsing the instructions in "Field Order" fully. In particular, the user-defined elements no longer seem to be recognized, e.g.

Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers., translated by u3, u4, l: u, d, u20`.`

Any idea how I can get back to where I was?

You have an unpaired quote mark somewhere. Like an opening $ without a closing $.

Jon
Sonny Software

Thanks, that’s very much appreciated. As it turns out, I think there was a problem with the database, which I was able to resolve using the rebuild and repair tools.

I still have one small issue: in spite of having set the new format as my default, when I load my document in Mellel (with "Live Bibliography"), it is still loading the old format. Is there any way to make sure the new one is used instead?

You have to unscan in Mellel to remove the format assignment. Then scan again with the new format.

Jon
Sonny Software

Got it, many thanks. I’m a little reluctant to unscan / rescan in case it upsets my existing citations in some way.

Can I just check a detail? After editing one of the predefined formats, I see that it gets copied to the folder for custom formats. When a new version of Bookends is released and the format I have edited is replaced, what happens then? How are the two formats differentiated from each other?

This is covered in the user guide. The custom folders will not be touched when you update. If there are two with the same name Bookends will use the one in the custom folder. And in the Formats Manager the name will be in bold so that you'll know it's a custom format.

Jon
Sonny Software

Thanks (and sorry to ask something that is covered in the manual!).