BibTeX, biblatex and biber ⇒ .bst file language guide

[gwada74]

Hi,
My editor is really strict about my bibliography style, I used makebst to match as clase as I can the requirements. I need to understand the .bst language in order to reach the requirements.

Is there a free document that explain it ?

[frabjous]

Tame the BeaST is the only such documentation I know about.

But you should also consider switching to biblatex. It's far easier to customize without so much hassle.

I assume your editor only cares about the final version. If that's the case, then a final option to consider is just to wait until you're ready to submit, and that point, replace the \bibliography{...} line in your file with the contents of the .bbl file, and then manually edit the entries in the .bbl file as needed. Unless this is going to a recurring process, and/or you have a very long bibliography, that's probably less time consuming, especially if makebst helped you get very close.

[gwada74]

Hi,

thank you very much for that last response, but I need to submit my document tomorow and I have over a 1000 references, so I think it faster for me to modify the .bst file.

[frabjous]

With 1000 references, I can understand not wanting to modify the .bbl file, but unless you already know something about the postfix language .bst files are written in, I still think you'd be better off with biblatex than trying to learn it. You shouldn't need to modify your core document or your .bib files.