Math formatting lost on import

[jsdodge]

I have a bib-file that I have edited by hand, with article titles that include the phrase "$t$-$J$ model". When I import the file into zotero using Better BibTeX, then export it to a new bib-file, this phrase is converted to "T-J model". Please help.

Example input:

@Article{Bonca:2012in,
  author  = {Bon{\v c}a, J and Mierzejewski, M and Vidmar, L},
  title   = {{Nonequilibrium Propagation and Decay of a Bound Pair in Driven $t$-$J$ Models}},
  journal = {Phys. Rev. Lett.},
  year    = {2012},
  volume  = {109},
  number  = {15},
  pages   = {156404},
  month   = oct,
  doi     = {10.1103/physrevlett.109.156404},
}

Example output:

@article{Bonca:2012in,
  title = {Nonequilibrium {{Propagation}} and {{Decay}} of a {{Bound Pair}} in {{Driven}} T-{{J Models}}},
  volume = {109},
  doi = {10.1103/physrevlett.109.156404},
  timestamp = {2017-01-14T19:06:14Z},
  number = {15},
  journal = {Phys. Rev. Lett.},
  author = {Bon{\v c}a, J and Mierzejewski, M and Vidmar, L},
  month = oct,
  year = {2012},
  pages = {156404}
}

[jsdodge]

Report ID: 44NEBR2W

[retorquere]

There's two issues at play here. One fairly simple, one more complicated.

Simple one first. The extra bracing ({{...}}) you have in your input could in principle be detected but you wouldn't believe how complex it actually is to parse (or generate) the meaning of braces outside LaTeX -- the double-bracing you see in the output is the result of long discussions to find something that works unambigously (so far...). If you're willing to do a one-time manual correction, you can change the title in Zotero to

<span class="nocase">Nonequilibrium Propagation and Decay of a Bound Pair in Driven $t$-$J$ Models</span>

This is supported Zotero formatting, and means "don't mess with the casing here", which BBT will dutifully apply by outer-bracing that whole piece and not fiddling with case anywhere.

The harder part is the math-mode stuff. Zotero doesn't have any facility to denote math characters so BBT tries to map the input as best it can to regular text. Math is a pain in Zotero any which way you use it -- there's no supported way to get it in, unless you fake it with unicode characters/nocase markup that sort of look like your equation -- in which case BBT will probably do the right thing. But that is not why we use LaTeX now is it?

If your concern is only the output, you can make BBT do that forcing LaTeX mode in your references by changing the title in Zotero to

Nonequilibrium propagation and decay of a bound pair in driven <pre>$t$-$J$</pre> models

But note that the <pre> syntax is BBT only and your references will look weird unless you export it with BBT.

[jsdodge]

Thanks, that was quick!

I'll make those changes, but I'd also like to leave you with a feature request: would it be possible to convert all roman letters (but not numbers) that appear in math mode into italicized versions? This would fix the problem, assuming it wouldn't create new ones.

More examples: italicize "T" and "c" in "high-$T_c$" italicize "x", but none of the numerals, in "YBa$_2$Cu$3$O${6+x}$"

[retorquere]

Urgh.. I thought I had it, but then the blessed test suite found this:

journal = {Actes du $4^{\textrm{ème}}$ Congrès Français d'Acoustique},

which is translated to this under the changes I tried to make for this issue:

Actes du 4<sup>è<i>me</i></sup> Congrès Français d'Acoustique

which is a) found in the wild, because that's how I got it, and b) clearly not desirable.

If you can think of a rule that gets your case right but doesn't mess with this, I'm open. I currently have tests running on a change that will only italicize $<one or more roman numerals>$, which would work on my current test set (I think, we'll know soon), but it smells a little ad-hoc-ish.

[retorquere]

Wow that latter change didn't work at all.

[retorquere]

OK, I have something that passes my tests at https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/releases/download/builds/zotero-better-bibtex-1.6.91-br627-3454.xpi. You could give that a spin, but I'm not entirely committed to this solution yet.

[retorquere]

I can make a case to myself to do single-letter math mode I think... so $j$ would italicise, but $Jt$ not. Math-mode is abused in a whole lot of ways for formatting workarounds, I can't assume that every character is italicised, especially since the math-mode parsing is exceedingly dumb and doesn't understand that stuff like \textrm{...} would have to non-italicise etc.

[jsdodge]

Sorry for the long delay--I needed to move on from the reference DB to work on the paper that refers to it! I gather you moved on, too, since the link you posted last week doesn't work any longer, but I'd be happy to try it now if you're still interested in feedback.

FWIW, I'm finding that titles with markup are poorly done in most metadata, so I'm content to change the titles in Zotero by hand when necessary so that they are exported correctly in BibTeX. It may be enough for me to know the conversion rules so I can look up the appropriate markup when I need to.

Thanks for your prompt attention earlier, and apologies again for not reciprocating.

[retorquere]

I'm still not entirely happy with doing too much with math mode because it's abused too often to achieve non-math stuff in LaTeX, and I'd have to start recognizing where in math mode LaTeX would drop out of math mode, which is kind of hard to do without actually running it through LaTeX. Such are the perils of treating as markup what is actually a programming language. So if you're OK with post-import fixups, that would be my preference here. Doing math mode sort of properly would require a major reworking of the parser/generator I have.

The link is indeed gone, test builds are auto-deleted after a week because I would prefer they don't linger around; I can build a fresh one, but in general, either something gets fixed & folded into a new release, or I discontinue that line.

[jsdodge]

I can live with post-import fixups, and would appreciate some guidance on how to arrange my preferences to get most of the import right in the first place. For example, consider the following: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.83.214515

Using 'Save to Zotero using "APS"', the title listed in Zotero is formatted according to APS recommendation (see the