Getting involved
The LaTeX Bibliography Styles Database is build by the contributions of people (like you probably) who spent a little of their time in creating or improving a style file.Expanding the database
A critical parameter for this database to be useful is the number of styles available. Please help us to reference new journals in it.
New styles at (almost) no cost
If a style is not available here, you can start by searching the web for it. If you find it, please consider sending it to the database.
Frequently, the same style is valid for several journals. If you remark that one of them is present in the database but not the others, please try to write an exhaustive list of journals using the same style and absent from the database and send it.
Creating a new style file
If none of the solutions above work, you'll have to produce the style file yourself. By doing this you will help all future authors of the journal you are writing your article for. We thank you for this.
You can actually write the bst file (from scratch or by modifying an existing one). This is a difficult method because the bst files use a language completely different from TeX and you'll have to learn it. However it is the most flexible and powerful. BibTeX is available on CTAN and there is a manual on how to write style files.
Otherwise, you can use the utilities provided by the custom-bib package for LaTeX (see its documentation). The file makebst.tex produces a bst file which suits your needs by asking you questions on the desired format. To run it you need to latex it:
latex makebst.tex
and answer to all the questions. It is often difficult to get exactly what you want at the first try. makebst.tex produces a docstrip file (dbj extension) and it is often useful to hand edit it after running makebst.tex in order to fine tune some parameters without rerunning the whole process. To produce the bst file again you just need to re-latex the docstrip file:
latex yourstyle.dbj
Eventually, if the style is still not perfect, you can try to edit the bst directly. Refer to the paragraph above for links to on line resources on the bst language.
You can also choose to use amsrefs. In this case the format is stored in a sty file and the language is (La)TeX so things are probably easier. The documentation of the package is the first thing to read. You can take advantage of this commented template and modify it to suit your journal needs.
Testing you style file
Attempt to make a generic tex/bib file with many special cases in order to test the style files.
Sending a style file to the database
At the moment there is no upload facility to the database. You need to send an email to bstdatabase@gmail.com and we will update the database. The information needed is:- Journal(s)
- The journal(s) the file is suited for
- Style file
- The bst and/or sty file(s), attached to the email (no copy/paste inline please). If there are many files, they could be zipped together.
- Dependencies
- The names of the LaTeX packages your style depends on. Common examples are natbib, amsrefs etc. If there is a non standard dependency please provide the package in attachment too.
- Author
- Your name and/or email address if you want them to be displayed in the search results. No spam will come from us to the address you provide. It will be displayed as "name (at) domain.com" instead of "name@domain.com" in order to prevent robots to find it and spam you. If you are modifying an existing style please provide also the name and email of the previous author(s) of the style if they chose to mention them.
- Comments
-
A SINGLE line of optional comments, formatted with HTML tags. These comments can be used to provide links to other resources for style files for this journal (official publishers pages etc.) or to explain how the style should be used if it is not standard. Common HTML tags you will need for this are:
<br/>breaks the line<a href="http://www.somepage.com">Link to somepage</a>inserts the text "Link to somepage" as a link to www.sompage.com- <code>usepackage something</code> will insert the text "usepackage something" as a code element: it will be displayed with a fixed width font
| Journal (one name only) |
Base name of the style file (without the bst/sty/zip extension) |
Base name of the dependencies (without the sty extension) |
Author | Comments In a SINGLE cell on a SINGLE line |
Improving the database
Currently the database is very simple, the search is basic, there is no upload facility and the base is hosted on a personal home page space. This is because I do not know much of PHP/MySQL and do not have a proper place to host it. If you are willing to improve this, please send an email to bstdatabase@gmail.com.