[texworks] Note field content appearing in my references

[Stefan Löffler]

 Hi,

Am 2010-07-06 12:36, schrieb Andrew Hardy:
> Can any one possibly help me with this, I am new to texworks.

Welcome to TeXworks, then :).

> When I generate bibtex from endnote a lot of my references include a
> lot of content in the note field (not added by me) and this is
> presented in the bibtex.
>
> Even if I set \bibliographystyle{plain} in latex the generated bbl and
> the refs appearing in the pdf generated by texworks show all these
> notes.  I am told this is unacceptable and I must remove it, but I
> have spent quite a long time so far trying to do this, but to no avail.

As Alain already pointed out, this is probably an issue with the bibtex
exporter, as it shouldn't put anything "stupid" in that field. Anyway,
here are a few things you could try. Note that they are in no specific
order, so whichever works best for you is great. For all those points
where you edit the .bib file, make sure you have a backup of it (or can
recreate it easily).

 * Use JabRef (http://jabref.sourceforge.net/) to import Endnote files
into a (new?) bibtex file

 * Remove the "note" field (either using a bibliography editor like
JabRef, or by hand in the .bib file (it's a simple text file, so you
should be able to open it in just about any plain text editor, including
Tw))

 * Rename the "note" field into a "comment" field (this can be done,
e.g., in a text editor with simple search/replace; i.e., replace "note
=" or "note=" by "comment =" or "comment=", depending on whether endnote
produces spaces around the equal signs); note that this only works if
there are no "comment" fields present already

 * Rename the "note" field to something else (i.e., something not used
as a normal field with bibtex); these should simply be ignored

 * [This is experimental and I haven't tried it] Find "plain.bst" in
your TeX distribution and copy it to the place where your .tex file is;
rename it (e.g., to something like "mystyle.bst"); open it in a text
editor and remove all "note output" lines; Then adjust your .tex
document so that it uses the "mystyle" bibliographystyle.

 * [This is more complicated, but definitely the way to go if you have
fancy referencing requirements] Use custom-bib to create your own
bibliographystyle. It either can be installed from your TeX
distribution, or you can get it from
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/custom-bib/.

In any case, eventually you should remove all garbage data from the .bib
file if you want to use it (semi-)regularly.

HTH
Stefan