Academic CVs: Is there a database-driven solution for quickly generating different lengths & formats?

February 5, 2010 1:13 AM

Academic CVs: Is there a database-driven solution for quickly generating different lengths & formats?

My team submits a lot of research grant proposals, and different sponsors have different length and format requirements for CVs. It seems so inefficient to update/maintain different versions (full, 2-page, 1-page, NSF-style, NIH-style, etc.) or constantly start over from a full CV and edit it down to fit the sponsor's requirement. Some sort of database-driven solution that required only minor tinkering to spit out different lengths/formats would be better.

Surely this is a solved problem? But my Google-fu is failing me.

Please advise, thanks!

posted by Jacqueline to work & money (5 answers total)

This seems like the sort of thing that a competent LaTeX programmer (i. e. not me) could create. I know that there are LaTeX templates that will include either just the problems for a homework assignment, or the problems and the solutions, depending on some variable you set at the beginning. This seems similar. So perhaps Google some more keeping that in mind? Or perhaps this comment will jog someone's memory.
posted by madcaptenor at 5:15 AM on February 5, 2010

Seconding LaTeX. I'd build a couple of templates (full, 2-page, etc.) and \include the content from another file.

I do it the other way around with mine - use the same template, but \include a different file for every language. Mefimail me if you'd like the code.
posted by stereo at 5:48 AM on February 5, 2010

in latex:

\usepackage{ifthen}

%make this true or false
\newcommand{\textbook}{false}
\newcommand{\IfFullCV}{\ifthenelse{\equal{\textbook}{true}}}

\IfFullCV{this sentence goes in the CV}{This sentence is printed otherwise; leave empty if you wish.}
posted by about_time at 7:05 AM on February 5, 2010

There is actually a LaTeX resume package which adds neat resume-specific extensions to the basic include strategy stereo suggest. I saw it several years ago, hosted on some French guy's personal site rather than CTAN. Unfortunately, it seems to have been flushed from the tubes since then, as I can't find it any more.

But if you're specifically concerned about lots of citations formatted to specific styles, maybe you could hack something together with BibTeX and includes? BibTeX takes bibliographies in a canonical key-value format from a .bib file and writes the citations. CTAN has lots of predefined styles, and this site has screenshots for many of them.
posted by d. z. wang at 10:30 AM on February 5, 2010

Sorry, that was more confusing than need be. replace "\textbook" with "\fullCV" and the code is easier to understand. It works either way.
posted by about_time at 5:01 AM on February 6, 2010