Sonny Software

A while ago I heard someone complain over the fact that Bookends doesn't automatically insert the bibliography after an RTF scan (it puts it on the clipboard instead).
Coming from EndNote (like many of us do), I was a little annoyed by this too in the beginning. Now, I really don't think this is a big issue, just a different design decision. EndNote's way of doing it works best if you do indeed want to have the bibliography inserted at the end of the documents, but often you don't, and then Bookends way of handling it works better. But neither one is perfect.

Anyway, it occurred to me that it probably wouldn't be too hard (?) to ad an optional {bibliography} tag to the document and have Bookends parse that. If no such tag is found during the scan, just put the bib on the clipboard. If it is found, insert the bibliography at that point.
This should improve the scans that are done from within a WP as well, such as from Word or Mellel.

How about it?

Best regards, Niklas

Hi niklas,

I've thought of something along those lines as well. But word processors ofen include internal formatting code in the middle of words (in RTF), so a simple search in the document is bound to fail on many occasions. Also, this really would affect a minority of cases: Bookends already puts the bibliography where you previously moved it (when you rescan documents -- the first time it is at the end), and Mellel always places it at the end (Bookends has no control of this).

Jon
Sonny SOftware

Jon wrote:I've thought of something along those lines as well. But word processors ofen include internal formatting code in the middle of words (in RTF), so a simple search in the document is bound to fail on many occasions. Also, this really would affect a minority of cases: Bookends already puts the bibliography where you previously moved it (when you rescan documents -- the first time it is at the end), and Mellel always places it at the end (Bookends has no control of this).

I find BE's behavior with Mellel somewhat annoying in this case, but it sounds like the problem you note at the beginning of your post might not apply to Mellel due to Mellel's object-based approach to citations. Would a bibliography object be a doable addition to Mellel-Bookends integration?

It would be entirely on Mellel's end -- Bookends wouldn't know anything about it. Bookends hands off the info to Mellel, and Mellel disposes of it as it likes.

Jon
Sonny Software

Jon wrote:Hi niklas,

I've thought of something along those lines as well. But word processors ofen include internal formatting code in the middle of words (in RTF), so a simple search in the document is bound to fail on many occasions.

I see, but wouldn't it be possible to create an unambiguous tag that would work. I mean, there may be tens or even hundreds of unambiguous citation tags in the document, and they don't cause the kind of problem you describe. Or perhaps I misunderstood you?

You misunderstand. Trust me, it would be very difficult. But it is not a big deal. And certainly not in Word -- once you've moved the bibliography where you want it, Bookends will leave it there from then on when you rescan.

Jon
Sonny Software