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F. Dell'Orso, Bibliography Formatting Software: An Evaluation Template. 1999
Last Update: December, 28, 1999

                
10 FL-Formatting language to define output styles
Pr: mostly made up of:
1 field names

2 two formal instructions: field/string separator, group command «...» (i.e. if more elements -fields- are included in a group, one is enough for the relevant surrounding punctuation to be output)
3 punctuation (automatic control on double punct.), spacing, style (bold etc.): as written
4 many options for names, titles, dates, pages keywords
5 back slash (ASCII 92) \ marks any string as mere text, e.g.: " \« "
(FL recognizes specific and not generic workform field names and not numbers)
En: mostly made up of:
1 field names
2 field/string separator (| + hard space)
3 punctuation, spacing, tab, style (corsivo etc.)
4 many options for names, titles, pages keywords
5 ` (ASCII 96) mark as mere text e.g. `Journal` p^pp. sing/plural
(recognizes generic field names)
RM: same as ProCite (but it recognizes fields generic names and numbers) Papyrus: 
1 fields names
2 main commands: [  ]  [[  ]]  <   > out of these commands' control, strings are always appended
3 punctuation, | paragraph, {  } to capitalize;
4 many options for: names, year, pages et al.
10.1 Selection
1. fields 2. subfields
Pr: 1; 2: "surname, name", internal date format En: 1; 2: "surname, name"
RM: 1; 2: "surname, name", internal date format Papyrus:  "surname, name"
10.2 Add text
     1. in front of/after
     2. regardless of field presence
     3. depending on field presence
     4. depending on field content
Pr: 1 2 3 En: 1 2 3
RM: 1 2 3 Papyrus: 1 2 3
10.3 Distinguishes among occurrences of a repeatable field:
     1. by punctuation -separators
     2. because of position / sequence number
     3. can count them
Pr: 1; 2 only partially -as far as output and sort are concerned- names En: 1 names (not keywords); 2 partially names, as far as output is concerned
RM: 1; 2 only partially: names, as far as output is concerned Papyrus:   1; 2 only partially: names, as far as output is concerned
10.4 Produces tagged format output
Pr: yes, as an output style En: no
RM: yes, as an output style Papyrus: yes, as an output style 
10.5 Displays RT (reference type)
Pr: no (not in the styles but it can display it in the Record list) En: yes
RM: yes Papyrus: no
10.6 Produces permuted indexes (words in-out-and context)
Pr: no En: no
RM: no Papyrus: no
10.7 Offers conditional commands (IF ... THEN...)
Pr: not really, but implied by various options (e.g. names) En: not really, but implied by various options (e.g. names)
RM: not really, but implied by various options (e.g. names) Papyrus: not really, but implied by various options (e.g. names)
10.8 Upper/lowercase conversion
Pr: yes (names, titles, sort headings) En: yes
RM: yes Papyrus: yes --headline style for any field
10.9 Look-up tables to expand acronyms, abbreviations, replace text
Pr: yes: a) text between "«...»" ; b) field 10: "Journal title" and relevant list(s) En: Journal field ("Secondary title") and relevant list
RM: Periodical synonyms list Papyrus: Journal titles and relevant list(s)  
10.10 Contextual Record Preview
Pr: yes En: no
RM: yes Papyrus: yes, both in input and format design
10.11 Text added in styles can be language dependent for each record
     1. text lists can be modified
     2. new lists can be added (new language)
     3. text can be present in various fields
Pr: no En: no
RM: no Papyrus: no
10.12 Checks format syntax
Pr: no En: no
RM: yes Papyrus: yes
10.13 Level of difficulty of the formatting language
Pr: rather easy, does not require programming skills En: rather easy, does not require programming skills
RM: rather easy, does not require programming skills (offers a Wizard function) Papyrus: rather easy, does not require programming skills
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F. Dell'Orso, Bibliography Formatting Software: An Evaluation Template. 1999
Last Update: December, 28, 1999
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