# Ignore small words when generating bibtex key

**URL:** <https://discourse.jabref.org/t/ignore-small-words-when-generating-bibtex-key/1555>\
**Category:** Features\
**Created:** [March 15, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/ignore-small-words-when-generating-bibtex-key/1555 "2019-03-15T22:33:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tb77phd](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/tb77phd/32/536_2.png) [@tb77phd](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/tb77phd)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/ignore-small-words-when-generating-bibtex-key/1555/1 "2019-03-15T22:33:45Z")

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I use the following bibtex key generator:

> [auth]\_[journal:abbr]\_[year]

which abbreviates every word of the journal name. For example, if I have an article from the **Journal of the Physical Society of Japan** , the abbreviation in the bibtex key becomes **JotPSoJ**.

Is it possible to make the _:abbr_ modifier to ignore small words like “a”, “an”, “of”, “the”?

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**Author:** ![i\_ngli](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/i_ngli/32/677_2.png) [@i\_ngli](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/i_ngli)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2020, 5:37pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/ignore-small-words-when-generating-bibtex-key/1555/2 "2020-05-03T17:37:24Z")

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To me, this sounds like a very small enhancement, that you could ask for via [github](https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/issues/new?template=suggestion-for-improvement.md) -

or you could give it a go by just defining the correct regular expression,

e.g. by going to (in the current jabref master version)  
Replace (regular expression)

```
\b(a\|an\|of\|the)

```

by

```
[leave the second field empty]
```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [May 4, 2020, 12:10pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/ignore-small-words-when-generating-bibtex-key/1555/3 "2020-05-04T12:10:58Z")

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The only thing we have which ignores those words is the [shortTitle] modifier:  
[https://docs.jabref.org/setup/bibtexkeypatterns#title-related-key-patterns](https://docs.jabref.org/setup/bibtexkeypatterns#title-related-key-patterns)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tb77phd](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/tb77phd/32/536_2.png) [@tb77phd](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/tb77phd)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 3:10pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/ignore-small-words-when-generating-bibtex-key/1555/4 "2020-05-22T15:10:32Z")

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I just saw this. I’ll give Replace (regular expression) a try. However, since it doesn’t seem to be tied to journal abbreviation specifically, it probably would also replace any of those letter combinations in author names.