After much struggling with BibTeX (which seems unusable to me if you happen to cite non-English titles or can't use the few standard bibliographic styles that come with it), I've settled for Bookends. I agree with you that it's not perfect, but I haven't found better and I'm pretty sure that you would see a substantial improvement with a few changes in the bibliographical format(s) that you use (in the menu bar: Biblio > Formats Manager > Formatting Options). The codes are somewhat cryptic and the manual isn't exactly helpful, but I can help you offlist if you need and are willing to give Bookends a second chance.
Laurent
On Nov 28, 2007 9:42 PM, Peter Baker psb6m@virginia.edu wrote:
I'm wondering what bibliographical software people on this list are using. Last time I needed such software I used BibTeX, despite certain significant lacks. Now BibLaTeX looks very good. But with my last venture my publisher got kinda cranky about getting files in LaTeX, so I'm hesitant to go that route again.
I've been using the Mellel word processor because of its nice typography, sensibly structured files and pleasant interface. I got Bookends to go with it for bibliographical management, but I find it shockingly bad--introducing stray commas in bib entries and doing crazy stuff like rendering authors' names as "Smith, John" but editors' names (when there is no author) as "John Smith." Unless I just haven't figured out how to use it, I think it quite unusable.
So: what are the tech-savvy people on this list doing about bibliographical management? As medievalists we need software that handles edited books (with or without authors' names) gracefully, can handle translations, and can help with the complicated bibliographical situations we sometimes face in series like CCSL. It would be nice if it could produce a two-part bibliography ("primary works"/"secondary works"). For my own purposes, it would be nice if it ran on both the Mac and Linux, but I'd settle for Mac-only software if it would just work properly.
Peter Baker
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