Since writing below I have found a work-around, which I hope will
continue working on the biblio files:
In BibDesk, convert the bibtex database into bibtex. This seems a
little daft at first, but I picked this up on reading that on
importing and exporting BibDesk converts umlauts, etc. into the LaTeX
equivalent. My guess was that by "converting" to the same format,
would have the effect of "standardising" the umlauts, etc.
I have a suspicion that the software I used to gather the references
doesn't know" the LaTeX encodings for the umlauts, etc. and just left
them in their original UniCode.
For developers:
Is there any sense in having bibtex "convert" files in the same way
as I have (i.e. from bibtex to bibtex) to "standardise" the files
before LyX takes them up? While redundant for many users, it might
"catch" non-standard things and may make this "just work", at least
for the situation I have.
This may also provide a means of testing that the bibliography is in
a standard (or understandable) format and report a meaningful error
if it's not. (The current error messages are a tad too geeky for
non-programmers, etc.)
I haven't time to do let them know right now, but BibDesk ideally
should let users know that on loading a database, it had to convert
some stuff, i.e. that the internal version of it is "tainted" with
respect to the disk version, so that users are warned/asked to save
the conversions, etc.--? Perhaps even insist that they do it
immediately after loading it.
You're welcome to read the rest, I might as well let it stand in case
it's of use to anyone, but what's above it the nutshell take.
Grant
Grant Jacobs wrote:
One thing that bothers me about this being a BibTeX issue, is that
BibDesk writes these characters to RTF just fine. (It would tempt
me to think that there might a work-around that gets this directly
from BibDesk, avoiding BibTex.)
0) You have not understood the concept behind BibDesk - it's only a
sophisticated frontend to the database (bib) file that bibtex uses.
Try to read up on this.
Actually I do understand it ;-) No offence, but if you knew the
effort I have put into this, telling me to "Try to read up on this"
is a bit rich! :-)
1) You can enter the TeX-replacements for the special characters in
the bib-file (or in Bibdesk) instead of the unicode characters.
See <http://www.bibtex.org/SpecialSymbols/>
Since you say it is mostly for European author names, this should be enough.
Doing this manually is not a practical option. [Resolved above, though]
2) Make sure you use a recent version of BibDesk. Also, TeXLive-2008
and LyX 1.6.1 won't hurt.
LyX is 1.6.1 as the subject line says, BibDesk is the latest version.
Tex will be a little older (I have TexLive-2008 on disk, but I wanted
to leave installation of that until later, as I didn't wanted a
messed-up installation delaying me even more!)
HTH,
In an indirect way: it lead to seeing the comment about BiBDesk
converting on importing and exporting, etc. in a doc on the web. Long
story.
Konrad
P.S. Forget the path via RTF!
OK. Bit surprised though: there is an exporter for it in BibDesk and
an importer in LyX, so in principle it should work, right? (But
obviously not for some reason...!)
At 3:32 PM +0100 26/1/09, Konrad Hofbauer wrote:
Make sure you have 'Unicode to TeX Conversion' enabled in BibDesk's
'Files' Preferences !!!
Obviously :-) (I've already been all over the Preferences of both
programs looking for "likely things", googling, etc. I make a point
of trying hard myself before resorting to forums. Among others
things, the back-and-forth in forums takes a lot of time. I've put
literally hours into this. I hope you can my perspective: I really
expected this to "just work" as BibDesk must be used by most LyX
users and UniCode is so universal now... and all the rest. Fair point
about bibtex's age, though. [See my comment about the file format
though, para. 3 above.])
Grant
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