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I am using the following BibTeX style for my bibliography.

   \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
   \bibliography{IEEEabrv,references,thesis}

This formats bibliography entries like this:

enter image description here

, including a hyperlink to the web if provided. For brevity, I don't want it to show the URLs. How can I deactivate them?

EDIT: Let me clarify - I want to save space by not showing the URL, although the BibTeX entry for the publication contains a URL.

clstaudt
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  • Do you want to deactivate the hyperlinks for all possible URLs in your document or just for those URLs appearing in your bibliography? – Gonzalo Medina May 23 '12 at 17:52
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    I want to remove the URLs from my Bibliography without editing the .bib file. – clstaudt May 23 '12 at 18:01
  • I think the only way to do this would be editing the IEEEtrans.cls and make it somehow ignore the URL entries. Can you edit the .cls? – Dan May 23 '12 at 18:48
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    I've just goggled it a bit, and apparently you can do this by editing the .bst file. Check this out http://www.tug.org/pipermail/tex-live/2007-August/014582.html – Dan May 23 '12 at 18:53
  • @Dan Yes, this works. Had you posted this as an answer, I could accept it now. ;) – clstaudt May 23 '12 at 18:59

4 Answers4

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The IEEEtran BibTeX style provides an option to deactivate the display of URLs through use of its BST control functionality. To do so, create a BibTeX entry in one of your .bib files as follows:

@IEEEtranBSTCTL{BSTcontrol,
CTLuse_url = "no",
}

Then, activate the BST control with the \bstctlcite command. It is best to place this command right after \begin{document} because it will only alter the formatting of the citations that follow it.

\begin{document}
\bstctlcite{BSTcontrol}

This method is described in the IEEEtran BibTeX how-to file.

Note that this method avoids editing the ieeetran.bst style file.

RobotRaven
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14

If you don't want BibTeX to print out the URL field for a given entry even though a URL field is present, you need to edit the bibliography style file -- in the present case, the file IEEEtran.bst -- to disable this printing. Make a copy of the file IEEEtran.bst and call it, say, myIEEEtran.bst. Open the new file in a text editor and search for the function format.url. It should look like this:

FUNCTION {format.url}
{ url empty$
    { "" }
    { this.to.prev.status
      this.status.std
      cap.yes 'status.cap :=
      name.url.prefix " " *
      "\url{" * url * "}" *
      punct.no 'this.status.punct :=
      punct.period 'prev.status.punct :=
      space.normal 'this.status.space :=
      space.normal 'prev.status.space :=
      quote.no 'this.status.quote :=
    }
  if$
}

Replace this function with the following "dummy" function:

FUNCTION {format.url}
{ url empty$
    { "" }
    { "" }
  if$
}

In short, you're telling BibTeX not to print out any information contained in the URL field. Save the file, update the filename database if necessary (e.g., if using TeXLive, type texhash in a command window), and be sure to use the new bibliography style file from now on. Happy TeXing!

Mico
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    This should be marked as the correct answer, as the author of this question recognised in my comment above (which is pretty much the same as this answer) http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/57087/ieeetran-bibtex-style-how-to-deactivate-urls#comment119802_57087 – Dan May 23 '12 at 19:32
  • This also worked with a bib style called aipproc.bst – drevicko Aug 16 '14 at 18:56
  • @drevicko - Thanks! Indeed, the method should work for a great many (all?!) bibliography styles that feature a function called format.url and, naturally, .bib files with entries with a field named url. – Mico Aug 16 '14 at 19:01
2

I'm a little bit late to the party, but for anyone else looking for a way to do this it is also possible to make a new version of the IEEEtran.bst file as above and edit the following lines:

% #0 turns off the display of urls
% #1 enables
FUNCTION {default.is.use.url} { #1 }

to be:

FUNCTION {default.is.use.url} { #0 }

Make sure you rename the file and use the edited version.

Mensch
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Haidar Khan
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0

\hypersetup{hidelinks=true} will make the links "hidden" (typeset without emphasis, but still clickable).

You can switch this on and off for parts of the text (using \hypersetup{hidelinks=false} appropriately), so you can hide only the bibliography links or all links in the document.

Boris
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  • inserting this command gives me an error: Package kvsetkeys Error: Undefined key 'hidelinks'. – clstaudt May 23 '12 at 18:04
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    It is also not a solution to my problem, because it removes the colored border/clickable link, not the URL. I hope have formulated the question more clearly now. – clstaudt May 23 '12 at 18:11