autohotkeyAPA_titleFixer

An autohotkey macro to convert text in selected field to sentence case (APA style for citation titles).
Note: Autohotkey is WINDOWS only (sorry Mac/Linux/ChromeOS/etc. users!)

Author: Taylor Williams

tl;dr

1. download textFieldToSentenceCase.exe
2. run exe file
3. place text cursor inside the title text field in the Mendeley or Zotero application
4. press the hotkey (either pause or `+e)
5. be amazed
6. check for capitalization special cases

An alternate method if Zotero or Mendeley programs can not be used: copy the text to the clipboard then press ctrl+alt+shift+T. Paste the text in the dialog box and press OK. The converted text will then be available on the clipboard.

General usage

Download

Unfortunately GitHub doesn't make it easy to download a single file. Most users will only need the .exe file. (See Downloading the ahk file below for those instructions.) Follow these steps to download the .exe file.

1. Click on the file you want to download: textFieldToSentenceCase.exe.
2. In the top right, right click the Download button.

Run and use

In order to use this macro, run the .exe file (or the.ahk file if you have AutoHotkey installed: http://ahkscript.org/), place the cursor within the Mendeley text field you want to convert (you don't have to select or copy the text onto the clipboard), then activate the hotkey (set to run with the Pause key or with the combination of `+e (that is, left tick--`, above tab--and the letter 'e'). The contents of the text field will be converted to sentence case but may need some final manual adjustments for things like acronyms and proper nouns. The macro will run in the Windows taskbar, looking like a green H. To close just right click on the icon and select exit.

An alternate method if Zotero or Mendeley programs can not be used: copy the text to the clipboard then press ctrl+alt+shift+T. Paste the text in the dialog box and press OK. The converted text will then be available on the clipboard.

Special cases

This macro does account for capitalization of the first letter after a colon or other punctuation which APA specifies. It does try to account for some proper nouns, acronyms, or other special cases (I've included those that I come across*), but please be vigilant to see if you need to fix any manually. To contribute updates for your special cases, I welcome submitted pull requests or GitHub issues.

Troubleshooting

There is a known bug where the script will occationally place what is on the clipboard into the text field rather than the edited contents of that text field. If this happens then perform an undo command (ctrl/cmd+z) and try the hotkey again.

Code access

Downloading the ahk file

Follow these steps to download the .ahk file.

1. Go to the file you want to download: textFieldToSentenceCase.ahk. This opens the file in the GitHub UI.
2. Click it to view the contents within the GitHub UI.
3. In the top right, right click the Raw button.
4. Right click anywhere, select Save as...

Modifying the code

The code can be examined (and then edited) by opening the .ahk file in a text editor (my code was initially inspired from the code posted at https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/24431-convert-text-uppercase-lowercase-capitalized-or-inverted/).

Within comments in the .ahk file, you will find directions for how to modify which key is used to active the macro or change which applications you can active the macro in. Running the changes will require installing AutoHotkey.

Hope it helps!

Notes

• Below are the special cases the script looks for as of 29 Sept 2018 (this is copied from the autohotkey script, so look between the "/b" bookends for acronymns).

;correct common capitalizations ( "i)" sets the whole search string to be case insensitive;
;				"\b" restricts to a word boundary;
;				"\dD" matches e.g. 1D, 2D, 3D)
	;convert to ALL CAPS	;(Note, this is broken into multiple separate lines
				; because errors were being introduced when all entries
				; were in a single command)
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "i)((MOOC)|(\bSTEM)|(\b\dD\b)|(\bBME\b)|(\bIQ\b)|(\bIRT\b)|(\bSEM\b))", "$U1")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "i)((PBL\b)|(P12)|(P-12)|(K12)|(K-12)|(IEEE)|(\bENE\b))", "$U1")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "i)((\bR\b)|(\bNSF\b)|(\bEPICS\b)|(\bABET\b)|(\bAERA\b)|(\bLTS\b))", "$U1")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "i)((\bJSON\b)|(\bNCEES\b)|(\bFE\b)|(\bUSA\b)|(\bANN\b))", "$U1")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "i)((\bHMM\b)|(\bEDM\b)|(\bLA\b)|(\bLAK\b)|(\bLMS\b)|(\bMATLAB\b))", "$U1")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "i)((\bEEG\b)|(\bEKG\b)|(\bECG\b)|(\bEMG\b)|(\bNSSE\b)|(\bXML\b))", "$U1")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "i)((\bI\b)|(\bII\b)|(\bIII\b)|(\bIV\b)|(\bV\b))", "$U1")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "i)((\bVI\b)|(\bVII\b)|(\bVIII\b)|(\bIX\b)|(\bX\b))", "$U1")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "i)((\bXI\b)|(\bXII\b)|(\bXIII\b)|(\bXIV\b)|(\bXV\b))", "$U1")


	;capitalization special cases
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(vanth)", "VaNTH")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(markov)", "Markov")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(google)", "Google")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(bayes)", "Bayes")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(python)", "Python")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(american)", "American")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(america)", "America")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(kenya)", "Kenya")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(nairobi)", "Nairobi")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(kakuma)", "Kakuma")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(n-tarp)", "n-TARP")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(edx)", "edX")
	Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "(futurelearn)", "FutureLearn")