BibTeX Tidy

I find formatting is usually a nonissue with BibTeX files as entries tend to already be automatically generated from some authoritative source (e.g., CrossRef).<p>What I do end up using a lot however is nschloe&#x27;s betterbib [1].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;nschloe&#x2F;betterbib" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;nschloe&#x2F;betterbib</a>

I&#x27;m surprised that no one has mentioned bibtool [1], which is part of a standard TeXLive install. bibtool can also reformat BiBTeX entries and automatically generate keys. I also use it to turn URLs containing DOI to pure DOI using the following rule:<p><pre><code> % Turn DOI links into pure DOI. rename.field { url=doi if url = &quot;10\.[0-9.]+&#x2F;[-._;()&#x2F;:a-zA-Z0-9]+&quot; } rewrite.rule { doi # &quot;.*&#x2F;\(10\.[0-9.]+\&#x2F;[-._;()&#x2F;:a-zA-Z0-9]+\)&quot; # &quot;{\1}&quot; } </code></pre> [1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ge-ne&#x2F;bibtool" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ge-ne&#x2F;bibtool</a>

My .bib files are a mess. This is partly because I tried to order the file by year then author (manually), which of course resulted in some errors. And also because I write some free text in between entries which talk about the papers and have some keywords that I&#x27;m able to search for entries in.<p>I&#x27;d really like some sort of citation manager that uses a .bib file as the data format.

Does it fix incorrect Unicode chars? I&#x27;ve had a huge problem with that recently when for some reason Kbibtex insisted on converting {\&quot;O} into Ö. I believe Jabref fixed it but I&#x27;ve made very bad experiences with Jabref in the past and would prefer not to use it.

I used JabRef[1], Zotero[2], and ConTeXt[3] to create a reasonably consistent bibliography[4]. See the TeX SE post for details[5].<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jabref.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jabref.org</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zotero.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zotero.org</a><p>[3]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.contextgarden.net" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.contextgarden.net</a><p>[4]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;impacts.to&#x2F;bibliography.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;impacts.to&#x2F;bibliography.pdf</a><p>[5]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tex.stackexchange.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;490043&#x2F;2148" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tex.stackexchange.com&#x2F;a&#x2F;490043&#x2F;2148</a>

I&#x27;ve started using biblint which is nice although can be pretty aggressive in auto-cleaning:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Kingsford-Group&#x2F;biblint" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Kingsford-Group&#x2F;biblint</a>

This is great! Especially nice to be able to remove entire fields.<p>Relatedly, here are a couple of tools to ensure that references are complete (e.g. updating arXiv papers to their published versions, mostly for computer science papers):<p>- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;yuchenlin&#x2F;rebiber" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;yuchenlin&#x2F;rebiber</a> (CLI, web interface)<p>- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cl.cam.ac.uk&#x2F;~ga384&#x2F;bibfix.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cl.cam.ac.uk&#x2F;~ga384&#x2F;bibfix.html</a> (only *ACL papers, web interface with diff, disclaimer: mine)

Only tangentially related, but I&#x27;ve done this and it might interest someone else on this thread :)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;tpapastylianou&#x2F;A-tidy-LaTeX-project-template" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;tpapastylianou&#x2F;A-tidy-LaTeX-project-templ...</a>

First I used a VS Code extension for formatting. After getting into my thesis I switched to Zotero[1] to manage my resources. Its extension BetterBibtex[2] can export into a prettyprinted *.bib which refreshes automatically on change. Works on Zoteros subcollections too.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zotero.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.zotero.org</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;retorque.re&#x2F;zotero-better-bibtex&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;retorque.re&#x2F;zotero-better-bibtex&#x2F;</a>

On a tangential note, this got me really excited that there was a Stefan Sweig book that I hadn&#x27;t heard of. Alas, it seems as if &quot;the impossible book&quot; is a fiction.

On a related note, checkcites is great for cleaning up unused references as well.

I love it already!

I made a really rough script that does a bunch of transformations on bibtex files to have them be ready for use in academic papers:<p>1. Shorten author lists to 10 authors 2. Abbreviate journal names 3. Remove unneeded IDs and replace with doi links 4. Remove unneeded tags (file, abstract)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;joebentley&#x2F;6e3e4198ea427545738a8202130fcc25" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;joebentley&#x2F;6e3e4198ea427545738a82021...</a>