How to Abbreviate Author Names in IEEEbib.bst

When working with IEEE references in BibTeX, the IEEEbib.bst style is commonly used for IEEE conferences and journals. However, by default, this style formats author names in full (e.g., "John Smith" rather than "J. Smith"). If you'd like to abbreviate the first name to its initial, you can modify the IEEEbib.bst file by adjusting the way author names are formatted. For that you just need to modify the format.names function.

Find the format.names function in the IEEEbib.bst file. It looks like this:

FUNCTION {format.names}

{ 's :=

  #1 'nameptr :=

  s num.names$ 'numnames :=

  numnames 'namesleft :=

    { namesleft #0 > }

    { s nameptr "{ff~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}" format.name$ 't :=

      nameptr #1 >

{ namesleft #1 >

    { ", " * t * }

Just replace {ff~} with {f.~} in the 7th line to abbreviate first names, i.e.

    { s nameptr "{f.~}{vv~}{ll}{, jj}" format.name$ 't :=