Formatting inside .bib files with Biblatex

Question

I'm trying to manually put formatting codes into the fields of my .bib file, but the final compile step crashes with a Missing \endcsname inserted error on the \printbibliography line. In particular, I need to bold particular names, which may be in an arbitrary position in the author list. The problems seems to be with \textbf{Name} breaking the final compile.

I also tried {\bfseries Name}, but that bolds all the names afterwards.

(Background, I need to do for the publications list of my CV to put it in a particular required format. I'd rather use biblatex than manually format everything.)

Below is my MNWE. I'm compiling with pdflatex; biber; pdflatex on a MikTex-64bit distribution.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{filecontents}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}
% biblatex version 3.3
% biber version 2.4

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@misc{Article1,
author = {Last1\textsuperscript{*}, First1 and \textbf{Last2}, \textbf{First2} and Last3, First3},
year = {2016},
title = {The Title},
}
\end{filecontents}

\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\nocite{*}


\begin{document}

Star\textsuperscript{*} indicates student author.  \textbf{Bold} indicates corresponding author.
\subsection*{Desired output}
[1]  First1 Last1\textsuperscript{*}, \textbf{First2} \textbf{Last2},  and First3 Last3. \emph{The Title}. 2016.

\printbibliography

\end{document}

Answer 1

It is possible to inject commands into the name processing which are only used for certain keys + author counts. For the \textsuperscript it is not necessary but I'm inserting another one anyway as proof of concept. It is probably possible to store the info in the bib-file and one can certainly improve the interface:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@misc{Article1,
author = {Last1\textsuperscript{*}, First1 and Last2, First2 and Last3, First3},
year = {2016},
title = {The Title},
}
\end{filecontents}

\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}
% biblatex version 3.3
% biber version 2.4

\DeclareNameFormat{given-family}{%
  \nameparts{#1}%
  \ifgiveninits
    {\usebibmacro{name:given-family}
      {\namepartfamily}
      {\namepartgiveni}
      {\namepartprefix}
      {\namepartsuffix}}
    {{\csname key-\thefield{entrykey}-\the\value{listcount}-font\endcsname
      \usebibmacro{name:given-family}
      {\namepartfamily}
      {\namepartgiven}
      {\namepartprefix}
      {\namepartsuffix}%
      \csname key-\thefield{entrykey}-\the\value{listcount}-suffix\endcsname
      }}%
  \usebibmacro{name:andothers}}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}


\makeatletter
\@namedef{key-Article1-2-font}{\bfseries}
\@namedef{key-Article1-1-suffix}{\textsuperscript{*}}
\makeatletter

\begin{document}
\cite{Article1}
Star\textsuperscript{*} indicates student author.  \textbf{Bold} indicates corresponding author.
\subsection*{Desired output}
[1]  First1 Last1\textsuperscript{*}, \textbf{First2} \textbf{Last2},  and First3 Last3. \emph{The Title}. 2016.

\printbibliography

\end{document}

Answer 2

There is a more general way to handle this now in biblatex 3.4/biber 2.5 through data annotations since this is not an uncommon request and we need a way of allowing ad-hoc attachment of semantic information to pieces of data which doesn't require messing about with internals. Annotation in biblatexml is straighforward and done by XML attributes:

<bltx:entries xmlns:bltx="http://biblatex-biber.sourceforge.net/biblatexml">
  <bltx:entry id="Article1" entrytype="misc">
    <bltx:names type="author">
      <bltx:name>
        <bltx:namepart type="given" initial="F">First1</bltx:namepart>
        <bltx:namepart type="family" initial="L" annotation="student">Last1</bltx:namepart>
      </bltx:name>
      <bltx:name annotation="corresponding">
        <bltx:namepart type="given" initial="F">First2</bltx:namepart>
        <bltx:namepart type="family" initial="L">Last2</bltx:namepart>
      </bltx:name>
      <bltx:name>
        <bltx:namepart type="given" initial="F">First3</bltx:namepart>
        <bltx:namepart type="family" initial="L">Last3</bltx:namepart>
      </bltx:name>
    </bltx:names>
  </bltx:entry>
</bltx:entries>

With bibtex data sources, it's a bit uglier but relatively simple:

@MISC{Article1,
  AUTHOR    = {Last1, First1 and Last2, First2 and Last3, First3},
  AUTHOR+an = {1:family=student;2=corresponding},
}

and then you can use these annotations in formatting directives via three new macros:

\renewbibmacro*{name:given-family}[4]{%
  \usebibmacro{name:delim}{#2#3#1}%
  \usebibmacro{name:hook}{#2#3#1}%
  \ifdefvoid{#2}{}{\mkbibnamegiven{#2}\isdot\bibnamedelimd}%
  \ifdefvoid{#3}{}{%
    \mkbibnameprefix{#3}\isdot
    \ifprefchar
      {}
      {\ifuseprefix{\bibnamedelimc}{\bibnamedelimd}}}%
  \mkbibnamefamily{#1}%
  \ifpartannotation{family}{student}
    {\textsuperscript{*}}
    {}%
    \isdot
  \ifdefvoid{#4}{}{\bibnamedelimd\mkbibnamesuffix{#4}\isdot}}

\renewcommand*{\mkbibnamegiven}[1]{%
  \ifitemannotation{corresponding}
    {\textbf{#1}}
    {#1}}

\renewcommand*{\mkbibnamefamily}[1]{%
  \ifitemannotation{corresponding}
    {\textbf{#1}}
    {#1}}

This gives you the output you wanted without putting markup in the data and via semantic annotations. The DEV 3.4 PDF manual has the details. It needs the latest biber 2.5 release too.