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.TH ams2bib 1 "September 10, 2000"
.LO 1

.SH NAME
ams2bib \- convert AmSTeX bibliography into BibTeX

.SH SYNOPSIS
ams2bib [\-o file.bib] file[.tex]

.SH DESCRIPTION
.B ams2bib
takes a file consisting of AmSTeX bibliography entries
and produces a file consisting of the same bibliographic entries,
but in BibTeX format.

.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-\^o " file[.bib]"
Specify the name of the BibTeX file to produce.  The default is to use
.I name.bib,
where
.I name
is 
.I file,
stripped of any filename extension.
.TP
.B \-\^h 
Display a brief help message.

.SH USAGE
The only non-option command-line parameter is the name of an
input file.  If no filename extension is given, the default extension
.I tex
is assumed.  This file must consist of AmSTeX bibliography entries.

The output file consists of BibTeX bibliographic entries.  The kind of
BibTeX entry produced depends on the corresponding AmSTeX entry.  If
the AmSTeX entry contains
.I \\\\book,
then a 
.I Book
BibTeX entry is produced.  
Otherwise, if the AmSTeX entry contains 
.I \\\\inbook,
then a 
.I InCollection
BibTeX entry is produced.  
Otherwise, if the AmSTeX entry contains 
.I \\\\paper,
then an
.I Article
BibTeX entry is produced.  
If none of these three AmSTeX control sequence is contained, then the
AmSTeX entry is considered to be in error.

Note that a key is automatically generated for each BibTeX entry.
This key consists of all the authors' names catenated together,
followed by the date found in the
.I \\\\year
field.  If this would result in duplicate keys, then an alphabetic
letter ("b", "c", etc.) is appended to the key.  Users who want to use
other kinds of automatically-generated keys should consider using
Gerd Neugebauer's
.B bibtool,
which is available via CTAN (http://www.ctan.org).

.SH "SEE ALSO"
amstex(1), bibtool(1), bibtex(1), latex(1), tex(1).

.SH LIMITATIONS
One of the main differences between AmSTeX and BibTeX is that BibTeX
provides a greater variety bibliographic entries than does AmSTeX.
This means that an AmSTeX bibliography will often use ad hoc methods
in cases where a BibTeX bibliography can be more straightforward.  In
such situations, the user will have to make corrections by hand.  For
example, unpublished articles and technical reports have standard
BibTeX bibliographic entries, but are usually done in AmSTeX by adding
information to the  
.I \\\\paperinfo
field; hence, unpublished articles and technical reports will need to
be edited by hand.

Error checking is minimal.  
.B ams2bib
only does the usual command-line parameter checking.  In particular,
the syntax of the AmSTeX file is not checked.

As mentioned above, duplicate keys would normally result if the
authors and year match for more than one entry.  This is resolved by
appending an alphabetic letter to the key.  At most nine such
additional letters ("b" through "j") are added.

.SH "AUTHOR"
Copyright (c) Arthur G. Werschulz 2000.  
.B ams2bib
may be freely redistributed under the Gnu Public License.
Send mail to agw@cs.columbia.edu if you have any questions or
suggestions.