# JabRef differences in \[shorttitle\] between versions 3.8.1 and 4., not discounting ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘an’, 'of' in titles

**URL:** <https://discourse.jabref.org/t/jabref-differences-in-shorttitle-between-versions-3-8-1-and-4-not-discounting-the-a-an-of-in-titles/1147>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [May 10, 2018, 3:36pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/jabref-differences-in-shorttitle-between-versions-3-8-1-and-4-not-discounting-the-a-an-of-in-titles/1147 "2018-05-10T15:36:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Austin\_Downey](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/austin_downey/32/407_2.png) [@Austin\_Downey](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Austin_Downey)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2018, 3:36pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/jabref-differences-in-shorttitle-between-versions-3-8-1-and-4-not-discounting-the-a-an-of-in-titles/1147/1 "2018-05-10T15:36:41Z")

</div>

Greetings,  
I am working with two versions of JabRef on two windows machine. If I have a title “A paper on the workings of the world” that I want to generate a BibTeX key for in JabRef using the [shorttitle] key pattern I get two different results. For version 3.8.1 I get a BibTex key of:

“paperworkingsworld”

and on version 4. I get

“apaperof”

In both cases, I have [shorttitle] as my default patterns in JabRef. How can I get version 4.1 to discount the unimportant works like it does in version 3.8.1? I don’t want to just update everything to 4.1 as then I won’t be able to generate the BibTeX keys in the style I want.

If there is not a way to revert back to the old formatting style could I request this as a feature?

I previously asked this question on [tex.stackexchange.com](http://tex.stackexchange.com), that conversation can be found here:  
[https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/430855/jabref-differences-in-shorttitle-between-versions-3-8-1-and-4-1-not-discounti](https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/430855/jabref-differences-in-shorttitle-between-versions-3-8-1-and-4-1-not-discounti)

---

<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 11, 2018, 6:54pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/jabref-differences-in-shorttitle-between-versions-3-8-1-and-4-not-discounting-the-a-an-of-in-titles/1147/2 "2018-05-11T18:54:35Z")

</div>

Hi,

thanks for the proposal. I have adapted the code and created a PR. When the PR is reviewed and merged )in a couple of days or so), the changes will be avaiable in the latest JabRef master version.

> <https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/pull/4030>

Regards  
Christoph

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Austin\_Downey](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/austin_downey/32/407_2.png) [@Austin\_Downey](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Austin_Downey)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/jabref-differences-in-shorttitle-between-versions-3-8-1-and-4-not-discounting-the-a-an-of-in-titles/1147/3 "2018-05-11T19:39:26Z")

</div>

Amazing! Thank you so much. Time (almost) to update all my Jabref installs.