BibTeX Cleanup Tool

An interactive tool for cleaning and formatting BibTeX entries according to specific guidelines.

Features

• Interactive Processing: Review and approve each change before applying
• Citation Tracking: Scans TeX files to identify which BibTeX entries are actually used
• Smart Formatting: Automatically fixes common BibTeX issues:
  • Protects capital letters in titles (acronyms, proper nouns, etc.)
  • Fixes entry types (e.g., @misc to @article for arXiv papers)
  • Cleans up fields (removes abstracts, unnecessary publishers, etc.)
  • Standardizes arXiv entries with proper journal fields
  • Fixes page ranges to use double dashes
• Diff Display: Shows clear before/after comparisons with color highlighting
• Manual Editing: Option to manually edit entries in your text editor
• Safe Operation: Never overwrites original files; saves to new file
• Validation: Ensures output BibTeX is properly formatted and parseable

Installation

1. Clone or download this tool into the bibtext_cleanup folder
2. Install required Python packages:

cd bibtext_cleanup
pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

Basic usage:

python cleanup_tool.py paper.tex references.bib

Specify output file:

python cleanup_tool.py paper.tex references.bib -o cleaned_refs.bib

Alternative syntax:

python cleanup_tool.py --tex main.tex --bib refs.bib --output refs_clean.bib

Interactive Commands

When processing each entry, you can:

• [a] Accept changes - Apply the suggested formatting
• [s] Skip entry - Keep the original formatting
• [e] Edit manually - Open in text editor for custom changes
• [d] Show detailed diff - Display the differences again
• [v] View side-by-side - Show original and formatted versions
• [q] Quit - Save progress and exit
• [x] Exit - Exit without saving

Guidelines Followed

The tool follows these BibTeX formatting guidelines:

1. Entry Types:

   • Uses @article for journal papers and arXiv preprints
   • Uses @inproceedings for conference papers
   • Uses @book for books

2. Capitalization:

   • Protects acronyms (NASA, IEEE, etc.) with braces
   • Protects proper nouns and CamelCase words
   • Protects capitals after colons and periods

3. Field Cleaning:

   • Removes abstract fields for readability
   • Removes publisher field from articles
   • Removes location information from booktitle/journal fields
   • Ensures page ranges use double dashes (--)

4. arXiv Entries:

   • Converts @misc to @article
   • Adds journal field: "arXiv preprint arXiv:XXXX.XXXXX"
   • Ensures URL field is present

Files

• cleanup_tool.py - Main script
• bibtex_parser.py - BibTeX parsing module
• citation_scanner.py - TeX file citation scanner
• bibtex_formatter.py - Formatting rules implementation
• interactive_cli.py - User interface components
• requirements.txt - Python dependencies
• README.md - This file

Notes

• The tool only processes entries that are actually cited in your TeX file
• Original files are never modified; results are saved to a new file
• The output file is validated to ensure proper BibTeX formatting
• You can interrupt the process at any time and save partial progress

Requirements

• Python 3.6+
• colorama (for colored terminal output)
• bibtexparser (optional, for enhanced parsing)