BibLaTeX: Abbreviating a long title in the text

Question

I've seen several questions here about abbreviating author names in the bibliography or in in-text citations. But I have a slightly different problem.

I'm citing a resource that has both a short title and a long title, but doesn't have an author listed. I want to use the long name in the bibliography entry, but the short name in in-text citations.

In other words:

[document.bib]
@misc{epsd,
    title={{ePSD}: the Electronic {Pennsylvania} {Sumerian} dictionary},
    url={http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/nepsd-frame.html},
    year={2006},
    organization={{University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology}},
}

@misc{shashkova,
    author={Šašková, Kateřina},
    title={Cuneiform Sign List},
    year={2021},
}
@book{borger,
    author={Borger, Rykle},
    title={Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon},
    year={2010},
}
@book{ruester,
    author={R{\"u}ster, C. and Neu, E.},
    title={Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon},
    year={1989},
}

[document.tex]
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[style=authoryear-comp]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{document.bib}

\begin{document}

For more information, see \textcite{shashkova}, \textcite{epsd}, \textcite{borger}, and \textcite{ruester}.

\printbibliography

\end{document}

The current result for the bibliography is good. But the in-text citation is rather awkward:

I would like to make this instead say " ePSD (2006)" in the text, while still listing the full title in the bibliography.

Does BibLaTeX provide a straightforward way to do this?

Answer 1

Generally there are two ways to make titles more to the point in citations.

• If the title naturally splits into a title and a subtitle, use title and subtitle.
• If the title does not split naturally into title and subtitle, use title for the whole title and give a short/abbreviated version of the title in shorttitle.

For works without authors these two approaches produce slightly different results in the bibliography.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[style=authoryear-comp]{biblatex}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@misc{epsd,
  title        = {{ePSD}},
  subtitle     = {The Electronic {Pennsylvania} {Sumerian} dictionary},
  url          = {http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/nepsd-frame.html},
  year         = {2006},
  organization = {{University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology}},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
\textcite{epsd}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[style=authoryear-comp]{biblatex}

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@misc{epsd,
  title        = {{ePSD}: the Electronic {Pennsylvania} {Sumerian} dictionary},
  shorttitle   = {{ePSD}},
  url          = {http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/nepsd-frame.html},
  year         = {2006},
  organization = {{University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology}},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
\textcite{epsd}

\printbibliography
\end{document}