# BibTeX key generator improvement

**URL:** <https://discourse.jabref.org/t/bibtex-key-generator-improvement/1506>\
**Category:** Features\
**Created:** [February 7, 2019, 12:05pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/bibtex-key-generator-improvement/1506 "2019-02-07T12:05:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Zetison](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/zetison/32/821_2.png) [@Zetison](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Zetison)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2019, 12:05pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/bibtex-key-generator-improvement/1506/1 "2019-02-07T12:05:35Z")

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It would be nice if an alternative to [shorttitle] could be added which did not exclude “function words”.

I do not know if it is a bug, but the article titled “A few new (?) facts about infinite elements” by Demkowicz in 2006 resolves to “Demkowicz2006fn?” using [auth][year][shorttitle:abbr:lower]. Could it be added an option which ignores words starting with a symbol not being a number or a letter?

It would also be nice if the generator could ignore text between dollar-signs. I.e. “An $\mathcal{O}(1)$ integration scheme for three-dimensional surface scattering problems” by Bruno in 2007, should not give Bruno2007a$1$i (no idea why this is the case) but Bruno2007ais.

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**Author:** ![Siedlerchr](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/siedlerchr/32/216_2.png) [@Siedlerchr](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Siedlerchr)\
**Post date:** [March 13, 2019, 7:18pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/bibtex-key-generator-improvement/1506/2 "2019-03-13T19:18:41Z")

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Hi,

did you check the option: Enforce legal characters in bibtexkey only in the preferences?  
Should be under general, I think. This should discard all illegal characters (e.g. slashes, question marks etc which are not allowed in file systems),

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**Author:** ![Tony\_S.F](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/tony_s.f/32/817_2.png) [@Tony\_S.F](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Tony_S.F)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2020, 1:30pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/bibtex-key-generator-improvement/1506/3 "2020-11-25T13:30:55Z")

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This does nothing for dollar signs unfortunately. Using Jabref 5.0 on Ubuntu.

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**Author:** ![Zetison](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/zetison/32/821_2.png) [@Zetison](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Zetison)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 4:45pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/bibtex-key-generator-improvement/1506/5 "2020-11-29T16:45:34Z")

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It seems to me that shorttitleINI has been included as a remedy for this, and [this](https://docs.jabref.org/setup/citationkeypatterns) page seems to suggest this option does not ignore function words. However, my newly installed JabRef on Linux still ignores function words, is this a bug?

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**Author:** ![k3KAW8Pnf7mkmdSMPHz2](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/k3kaw8pnf7mkmdsmphz2/32/1116_2.png) [@k3KAW8Pnf7mkmdSMPHz2](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/k3KAW8Pnf7mkmdSMPHz2)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2020, 10:34pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/bibtex-key-generator-improvement/1506/6 "2020-11-30T22:34:46Z")

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It should include all words. `The descent of` become the citation key `Tdo` in JabRef 5.2–2020-11-26–f1a2fa7. Which title do you use, what result do you get and what result would you expect to get?

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**Author:** ![Zetison](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/zetison/32/821_2.png) [@Zetison](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Zetison)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2020, 6:39pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/bibtex-key-generator-improvement/1506/7 "2020-12-01T18:39:29Z")

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My bad, I only got the old version from apt install jabref.