[texhax] journal name abbreviations without using @string

[Ruth Mugford]

Hi there,

I have a problem similar to one posted on the texhax discussion forum, in May 2004:

http://www.tug.org/pipermail/texhax/2004-May/002047.html

However, the solution was emailed directly and not posted on the forum, so I wondered if anyone could help me?

I have also imported my references from Endnote into Bibtex and I
would like to convert the long journal names to abbreviated names in a style file.  All the information on bibtex that I have read recommends typing a one word shorthand for each journal and using the @string command to define the outputted journal name.  However, I'd rather not replace all the unabbreviated journal names that I already have in Bibtex with shorthands.  It would be useful to be able to choose whether to use the long journal names, or abbreviations in future.  I have looked into writing some style file code, but the syntax seems pretty complicated.  I wondered anyone on this list has already done this and has some code to solve this problem?  It would save me a lot of time!  Thanks for your help.

Ruth