P
Peter T. Daniels
The supplement for the Word2007 bibliography tool created by Yves
Dhont offers a needed improvement on the faulty built-in "Chicago"
style, correcting two of its more egregious errors; but the "ASA"
style almost exactly provides a perfect instantiation of Chicago style
(most notably, sorting by year and not abbreviating names). It needs
only a tiny bit of tweaking to make it work.
Unfortunately, BibText can be used only by persons "familiar with XLS
programming."
I am not "familiar with XLS programming," but following the Guide, I
could make the changes needed to turn "ASA" into "Chicago" style --
except that it appears to be impossible to open the file in anything
but read-only mode. (If I open it in IE by double-clicking, it looks
like the examples in the BibText Guide but it's read-only. If I open
it from inside Word, most of the bracketed material, including all the
identifications of subcomponents, turns into opening- and closing-
cartouches ringed in red. If I open it by left-clicking and "Open
with" Notepad, it loses all formatting. If I open it with "WordPad,"
it looks the same as if opened in Word but it's not read-only -- but
after I make a few changes and save it, the file has lost about half
its size (from 141 kB to 81 kB) and Word does not recognize it as a
style.)
There are two comments at the website asking exactly this question
more than two years ago, and they are not responded to.
Does anyone have any ideas about how to successfully modify BibText
bibliography styles?
(BTW "ASA" is not usable as-is, because for a "Book Section," it puts
"P." instead of "Pp." before the page numbers.)
(In case anyone wants to simply make the needed style and post it to
the BibText website, as I would do if I were able to create it,) The
changes needed to turn "ASA" into "Chicago" are:
- period after author's name, before year, in bibliography entries
- comma before "and" between two authors in a two-author work
- page numbers after editor, not before title, in Book Section entries
(without "pp.")
- it looks as though "Translated by" is not encoded for, though I
didn't happen to have any examples in the chapters I tested it with
- I have been using "Edition" for a book series, required in Chicago
style, since it appears in the right place in Word's "Chicago" style,
but it would be better for it to be an additional element in a
bibliographic record. It should be in parentheses in Chicago style,
final period inside the parenthesis.
- In citations, year and page should be separated by comma-space, not
by colon-no-space.
Thank you.
Dhont offers a needed improvement on the faulty built-in "Chicago"
style, correcting two of its more egregious errors; but the "ASA"
style almost exactly provides a perfect instantiation of Chicago style
(most notably, sorting by year and not abbreviating names). It needs
only a tiny bit of tweaking to make it work.
Unfortunately, BibText can be used only by persons "familiar with XLS
programming."
I am not "familiar with XLS programming," but following the Guide, I
could make the changes needed to turn "ASA" into "Chicago" style --
except that it appears to be impossible to open the file in anything
but read-only mode. (If I open it in IE by double-clicking, it looks
like the examples in the BibText Guide but it's read-only. If I open
it from inside Word, most of the bracketed material, including all the
identifications of subcomponents, turns into opening- and closing-
cartouches ringed in red. If I open it by left-clicking and "Open
with" Notepad, it loses all formatting. If I open it with "WordPad,"
it looks the same as if opened in Word but it's not read-only -- but
after I make a few changes and save it, the file has lost about half
its size (from 141 kB to 81 kB) and Word does not recognize it as a
style.)
There are two comments at the website asking exactly this question
more than two years ago, and they are not responded to.
Does anyone have any ideas about how to successfully modify BibText
bibliography styles?
(BTW "ASA" is not usable as-is, because for a "Book Section," it puts
"P." instead of "Pp." before the page numbers.)
(In case anyone wants to simply make the needed style and post it to
the BibText website, as I would do if I were able to create it,) The
changes needed to turn "ASA" into "Chicago" are:
- period after author's name, before year, in bibliography entries
- comma before "and" between two authors in a two-author work
- page numbers after editor, not before title, in Book Section entries
(without "pp.")
- it looks as though "Translated by" is not encoded for, though I
didn't happen to have any examples in the chapters I tested it with
- I have been using "Edition" for a book series, required in Chicago
style, since it appears in the right place in Word's "Chicago" style,
but it would be better for it to be an additional element in a
bibliographic record. It should be in parentheses in Chicago style,
final period inside the parenthesis.
- In citations, year and page should be separated by comma-space, not
by colon-no-space.
Thank you.