how to make volume bold and et. al italic when using the apalike bibliography style

Question

I need to edit apalike file so that volume number apears in bold e.g. 1 and et al. in italic. Anyone? Thanks!

Answer 1

1. Make a copy of apalike.bst, rename it e.g. myapalike.bst
2. To make volume bold find FUNCTION {format.vol.num.pages}. In this function replace line { volume field.or.null with { "{\bfseries " volume "}" * * field.or.null
3. To make et al italic find FUNCTION {format.lab.names}. In this function make 2 replacements: % { pop$ "et~al." * } should become { pop$ "\textit{ et~al.}" * } { " et~al." * } should become { " \textit{et~al.}" * }

Answer 2

You have to edit et~al. in \textit{et~al.} three times. The third one you will find in FUNCTION {format.names}.

Cheers