This layout formatter uses the Bibtex name.format$ method and provides ultimate flexibility: The formatter needs a parameter to be passed in that follows the following format: <case1>@<range11>@"<format>"@<range12>@"<format>"@<range13>...@@ <case2>@<range21>@... and so on. Individual cases are separated by @@ and items in a case by @. Cases are just integers or the character * and will tell the formatter to apply the following formats if there are less or equal authors given to it. The cases must be in strict increasing order with the * in the last position. For instance: case1 = 2 case2 = 3 case3 = * Ranges are either <integer>..<integer>, <integer> or the character * using a 1 based index for indexing authors from the given authorlist. Integer indexes can be negative to denote them to start from the end of the list where -1 is the last author. For instance with an authorlist of "Joe Doe and Mary Jane and Bruce Bar and Arthur Kay": 1..3 will affect Joe, Mary and Bruce 4..4 will affect Arthur * will affect all of them 2..-1 will affect Mary, Bruce and Arthur The <format> uses the Bibtex formatter format: The four letter v, f, l, j indicate the name parts von, first, last, jr which are used within curly braces. A single letter v, f, l, j indicates that the name should be abbreviated. To put a quote in the format string quote it using \" (mh. this doesn't work yet) I give some examples but would rather point you to the bibtex documentation. "{ll}, {f}." Will turn "Joe Doe" into "Doe, J." Complete example: To turn: "Joe Doe and Mary Jane and Bruce Bar and Arthur Kay" into "Doe, J., Jane, M., Bar, B. and Kay, A." you would use 1@*@{ll}, {f}.@@2@1@{ll}, {f}.@2@ and {ll}, {f}.@@*@1..-3@{ll}, {f}., @-2@{ll}, {f}.@-1@ and {ll}, {f}. Yeah this is trouble-some to write, but should work. For more examples see the test-cases.