Sam Lewis wrote:
Can anyone report of experience using generated BSTs, for book or article class, which are based on merlin.mbs?
I'm not sure what to report. Did it, it worked. I generated a .bst file for Decision Sciences Journal using makebst/merlin, and it was fine on the first try. For a second journal (I forget which), my first attempt was almost but not quite correct. The answers you give to the makebst "interview" go into a batch file that is then used to produce the .bst file. Rather than repeat the full interview to make one change, I just edited the batch file (easy to do, since it includes the queries as well as your responses).
Most recently, I ran into a journal with some finicky (and IMHO odd) ideas about formatting of references. I could get close using makebst/merlin, but there was one obnoxious bit of business involving editing the .bst file itself. The .bst file is source code for a program (in a language unique to BibTeX), so editing it is not for the faint of heart. Fortunately, somebody on the list here was able to guide me to the right modification. (Sidebar: I posted the problem both here and comp.text.tex, the newsgroup for all things TeX, and got much more useful feedback here.)
Beyond mere help and slightly off lyx topic, but in quest of knowledge: What author--year support system meets what need? What are the significant differences? % ,nat%: Natbib % %: (def) Older Natbib % ,alk%: Apalike % ,har%: Harvard % ,ast%: Astronomy % ,cay%: Chicago % ,nmd%: Named % ,cn%: Author-date
Have a look at the BibTeX Style Examples page (http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~kjt/software/latex/showbst.html) to see the differences.
-- Paul
