[ANN] Pages-BibTeX

Hello,

I'd like to announce a quick ruby script of relevance to some of you  
using iWork on Mac OSX:

h1. Pages BibTeX

This is a quick fix for bibliographies in the Apple Pages  
wordprocessor.  It works with BibTeX bibliography files and creates  
numbered or author-year citations.  It does not depend on TeX or  
BibTeX, but makes use of them if installed. It works, but not  
reliably - see the BUGS section below.

h2. Download

The project page is at http://rubyforge.org/projects/pages-bibtex/

Download from http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=680

h2. Versions

2005 Feb 2 - Version 0.0.1 - First public release.  Proof of concept  
only.
2005 April 27 - Version 0.0.2 - Second version. Incorporating Jon  
Halls work on using external BibTex, and a few numbered styles.

h2. Author

Pages-bibtex is (c) 2005 Thomas Counsell [e-mail]. Please  
report bugs (there are many at the moment), suggestions and feedback  
to him.  Please also let him know if you wish to be notified of  
future versions.

Jon Hall ([e-mail]) has made significant contributions to  
this code

It is GPL so feel free to edit and share.

h2. Example

Open a terminal window.  Change into the Pages-bibtex directory.

1) open test.pages
2) ruby pages-bibtex.rb test.pages

* Safest to quit Pages at this point before proceeding *

3) open test-with-bibliography.pages

h2. Usage

To create and manage BibTex bibliographies I recomend [[ BibDesk :  
http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/ ]].

To cite a document, type \cite{key} in the text where key is the cite  
key defined in the BibTex file.  To cite the author use \citeauthor 
{key} to cite the year use \citeyear{key} to cite the author.

At the end of the document write \bibliography{bibfilename} where  
bibfilename is the filename of the bibtex file that has your  
citations.  This should NOT have the trailing .bib extension.

Then write \bibliographystyle{stylename} where stylename may be  
Harvard, NumberCiteOrder, NumberAlphabeticalOrder (capitalization  
matters) or, if you have BibTex installed, any bibtex style file.   
Note that this is only used to work out what cites look like in the  
text, and what order they should appear in the references.  The look  
of the reference should be governed by:

After that there should be a series of paragraphs like this:

<code>
BIBLIOGRAPHY-DEFAULT author. title (year).

BIBLIOGRAPHY-ARTICLE author. 鍍itlejournal volume.number (year):pages.

BIBLIOGRAPHY-BOOK author. title. address: publisher, year.

BIBLIOGRAPHY-PATENT author. Assigned to assignee. title. nationality  
patent number, year.
</code>

These define the style of the bibliography.  Any formatting applied  
to the words in this will be applied to citations in the final  
output.  Make sure you press return after defining the last of these.  
If each one is not in a separate paragraph it will have trouble.  The  
word citeref can be used to have the system insert the reference  
number if you are using a numbered citation style.

To create the bibliography, run:
<code>
ruby pages-bibtex.rb filename.pages
</code>

This will create a copy of your pages document, with a bibliography,  
in filename-with-bibliography.pages.  This can then be opened in pages.

h2. WARNINGS / BUGS:

1) This is a second kludge.  It will improve it over time.
2) Opening the document-with-bibliography.pages WILL OFTEN CRASH  
PAGES. But if you restart pages it will normally then open.
3) Most of the bibliography may be missing until you trigger pages to  
re-format and re-display (e.g. by creating a new line or inserting  
some text).
4) It really is sensitive to whether each style is on a separate  
paragraph, and this is not easy to visually verify or ensure in Pages.


Tom Counsell
http://tom.counsell.org