automatic capitalizing or un-capitalizing of article names

[bissi1]

Here are two possible entries in my large bibfile: entry 1: @Article{becker, author = {Becker, Niels G and Wang, Dingcheng}, title = {{C}an antiviral drugs contain pandemic influenza transmission?}, year = {2011}, volume = {6}, number = {{3}}, pages = {e17764}, journal = {PloS ONE}, }

entry 2: @Article{becker, author = {Becker, Niels G and Wang, Dingcheng}, title = {Can Antiviral Drugs Contain Pandemic Influenza Transmission?}, year = {2011}, volume = {6}, number = {{3}}, pages = {e17764}, journal = {PloS ONE}, }

How can I get Jabref to automatically make all the entries consistent, say with the first style? Follow up question will be: If some of the entries have a string in them like US which needs to be capitalized, how do I ensure Jabref also recognizes that?

[matthiasgeiger]

JabRef provides some "Formattes" which can perform such operations.

• the "Protect Terms" formatter puts {} brackets around "terms" - as you like to have it for "US". BUT: This works only for a build-in list of defined terms and not for arbitrary words. Therefore an automation resulting in always correct results is not possible. You'll have to check the titles and manually protect the casing using {} brackets of all not recognized terms.
• the "Sentence Case" formatter capitalizes the first word and lowercases all other words (which are not protected using {})

So a combination of those two formatters should do the work for you (with the limitation mentioned above)

You can use the "cleanup entries" functionality (available at the Quality menu) to manually perform the actions on all selected entries - or you can define the same actions as "Save Actions" in the "Database Properties" settings (available since JabRef 3.3).

Please backup your bibfile before performing those operations on a large number of entries! Undoing all changes might not be possible.

[bissi1]

Thanks! Could you provide some more specifics - I'm new to JabRef just a week- where are these options available? Where is the Protect Term and Sentence Case formatter?

[matthiasgeiger]

You can find the cleanup entries function in the "quality" Menü - the save actions can be found in "File" >"database properties".

In both cases you have to select and add the formatters to the list of actions to be performed for the field "title".

(Sorry answering from my Smartphone - so I can't provide Screenshots)

[stefan-kolb]

Closing this issue due to inactivity :zzz: Please reopen the issue with additional information if the problem persists.