Get the Perfect .bst Files for APL Submission: Expert Tips and Tools

[gareth]

Hi all,

Had a GOOD look around for a .sty or .bst files for submission of a LateX article to Applied Physics Letters. There have been a few posts elsewhere with no joy, but they are dated now.

Has anyone got a resonable match for this journal?

Or can anyone giude me as to how to go about making a .bst file of my choice?

I have used makebst to generate a few, but they are not perfect (journal name not abbreviated etc.). I'm not sure what to modify in the .bst file to get the results I need, it could take me a while to get to grips with the code.

Please save me some thinking!

Thanks

 

[f95toli]

I don't think there are any official files. I have the same problem whenever I write a paper for APL. As you know they require you to submit the paper as a manuscript without any formatting at all, i.e. want you to send them the text (double spacing) and the figures separately (or with the figures at the end).
And yes, this does mean that there is no way to accurately determine the length of the paper until you get the draft from them which is extremely annoying.

The last time we submitted a paper we had some serious problems with the length, whoever was doing the layout decided to use two columns instead of one (which was what we intended) for one of the figures so the paper ended up being way too long; in the end we had to remove the acknowledgments...

I normally just use the PRL .bst file, it give me rough idea of how long the paper is, but it is not an ideal solution.

 

[gareth]

Thanks for the help f95toli, the general consensus from online posts is that it's an awkward submission process.

I am using the PRL .bst file to get a feel for the length, however, they do say they require the referencing to be done in the correct format. However, they don't want your .bbl file with the paper. So it has to be in the old 'beginbibliography' way.

How did you manage to get your bibliography and references in order. In particular the numerical indices for some references, and the "Ref.12" style when used in the middle of a sentence?

Please tell me this doesn't matter and they will sort it out!

 

[Gokul43201]

If I may pile on to this thread, I have the same question for JAP - does anyone have a template they are willing to share? Also, they say they want everything in a single file - I only have experience with Phys Rev, so have little idea how to go about this, when it comes to figures (I think I can do the bibiography using \begin{thebibiography}).

Sorry for the intrusion, gareth.

 

[gareth]

Sorry for the intrusion, gareth.

Why, not at all!

Do JAP supply a template for the paper, or bibliography?

I'm curious to know how you're going to put together the bibliography, I have not used the \begin{thebibliography} method before. I'm going to guess the styles are pretty similar for both journals (AIP), so if you can give me a few pointers it would be appreciated. I can get the coorect bibliographic format to work o.k. (by using the revtex4 package).

But the problem is that the in text citations are of the [3] kind.

I know you can use the natibib package to get the citations to appear as indices, but this can only be used with certain bibliographic styles.

Any ideas?

 

[Gokul43201]

Why, not at all!

Do JAP supply a template for the paper, or bibliography?

I haven't found one yet.

I'm curious to know how you're going to put together the bibliography, I have not used the \begin{thebibliography} method before. I'm going to guess the styles are pretty similar for both journals (AIP), so if you can give me a few pointers it would be appreciated. I can get the coorect bibliographic format to work o.k. (by using the revtex4 package).

I not finished with the actual writing part, so have postponed the formatting issues till when they become necessary. For now, I'm also using RevTeX4.0 and writing it up as a Phys Rev B preprint, which automatically gives me citations as indices (not that care about that yet).Here's a skeleton:

%%
%%
\documentclass[aps,prb,preprint,groupedaddress]{revtex4}
%\documentclass[aps,prl,preprint,superscriptaddress]{revtex4}
%\documentclass[aps,prb,twocolumn,groupedaddress,showpacs]{revtex4}
\usepackage{graphicx}

% \bibliographystyle{apsrev}

\begin{document}

\title{Title here}

\author{Author1, etc.}
%\email[]{Your e-mail address}
%\homepage[]{Your web page}
%\thanks{}
%\altaffiliation{}
\affiliation{univ/company}%Collaboration name if desired (requires use of superscriptaddress
%option in \documentclass). \noaffiliation is required (may also be
%used with the \author command).
%\collaboration can be followed by \email, \homepage, \thanks as well.
%\collaboration{}
%\noaffiliation

\date{\today}

\begin{abstract}

This is the abstract 

% insert abstract here

\end{abstract}%\pacs{xx.xxx}
%\keywords{}

%\maketitle must follow title, authors, abstract, \pacs, and \keywords
\maketitle

\section{Introduction}

Blah blah

This is observed in the measurements performed by Gokul {\it et al} \cite{gokul}, as well as several subsequent others \cite{gareth, PF, f95toli}.\section{Experiment}

Blah
\section{Results}\subsection{Sub1}

Blah1\subsection{Sub2}

Blah2

\section{Conclusions}

In this paper, we ...

\section{Acknowledgements}

The authors would like to thank  ...

\begin{thebibliography}{4}

    
\bibitem{gokul}
{Gokul {\it et al, Phys. Rev. B} {\bf xy} abcd (2007)}

\bibitem{gareth}
{Gareth {\it et al, App. Phys. Lett.} {\bf z} uv (2008)}
    
\bibitem{PF}
{P. F {\it et al, J. Appl. Phys.} {\bf lm} pqrs (2008)}

\bibitem{f95toli}
{F. Toli {\it et al, Phys. Rev. Lett.} {\bf 95} abcdef (2008)}    
\end{thebibliography}\end{document}

I have no ideas for getting a Ref. X in a sentence ... yet.

 

[gareth]

Thanks for the help, are you doing the \bibitems by hand?

In the mean time I have a temporary fix, I use a package (rextex4) that gives me similar bibliographic style (exactly the same, the latex example tex file, its called something like assamp.tex) as APL. Then all I do is make the citations as indices $^{12}$ and exclude the brackets when using cite (\citenp I think). When I get the bibliography I want just copy and paste the .bbl into the end of the doc (they don't want .bbl files submitted).

I asked the editorial office about all of this, first reply was basically a copy and paste from the authors guide, secondly I asked about the need for indices etc but as of yet no response.

 

[njb]

Hey Folks,

I am submitting to APL, and modified the nature.bst file from the Beebe MikTeX package to output journal articles in http://apl.aip.org/polopoly_fs/1.2684341!/menu/standard/file/APL_Sample_MS.pdf.

It seems to work in MiKTeX 2.8.

Maybe this will help some people get started on a BST for APL.

See the attached file.

-Nick

 

[yup]

Thanks Nick! I am surprised that no one give any response to such good bst file!

 

[klose_yin]

Hey dude, Thanks a lot for Nick (#8)'s contribution! It works by using \bibliographystyle{apl}, however after compiling, in the bibliography there come 2 blank entries, which make the real citation starts from no.3.
This is due to the revtex4-1 aip style generate a control .bib (normally called "...Notes.bib" and contains only 2 lines) accompanying with your own .bib. Then when one does bibtex, it will reads both .bib files and create 2 empty entries from the "...Notes.bib". (for more details, one can read the .bbl and .blg files to understand this).

Nevertheless, Here I propose an alternative method based on Nick's solution and get the right bibliography.
# copy the offical "aipnum4-1.bst" file to your local folder (where your latex manuscript is);
# replace the whole FUNCTION {format.title} in your local "aipnum4-1.bst" file by
FUNCTION {format.title}
{ title empty$
{ "" }
{ "" }
if$
}

# save, and run latex, bibtex, etc. The system will format the bibliography using this local modified .bst style.
# you get correct AIP APL formatted text body and PRL-like bibliography (without citation title) !

Cheers,
Yin