Is there a way to control the url breaking with biblatex? I am using ACS Guide and it says:

Note: Different web browsers break the text in different places of a URL. In a printed work, if the URL needs to be broken at the end of a line, the break should be made after a colon or a double slash; before a single slash, a tilde, a period, a comma, a hyphen, an underline, a question mark, a number sign, or a percent symbol; or before or after an equals sign or an ampersand.

I am also using the url package to typeset the url with the same font as my text. I read the package documentation and I am a bit confused by the macros UrlBreaks and UrlBigBreaks, butfrom what I gather these can only be used to allow a break after the listed characters, but not before as some of the requirements of the style guide (and I personally would not like breakings before a period for sure!). Is there a way to do this?

I think this should do what you want. It defines a new style urlstyle{acs} which redefines UrlBreaks and UrlSpecials according to your rules.

There's one minor issue. It will prefer to break between : and // rather than between the //, but if you have // somewhere else, there is potential to break between. I tried to fix this, but couldn't make it work. I don't think this will occur in a real example though.

MWE

documentclass{article}

usepackage{url}



makeatletter

defurl@acsstyle{%

  defUrlBreaks{do/}%

  defUrlSpecials{%

    do~{penaltyUrlBreakPenaltymathchar`~}%

    do.{penaltyUrlBreakPenaltymathchar`.}%

    do,{penaltyUrlBreakPenaltymathchar`,}%

    do-{penaltyUrlBreakPenaltymathchar`-}%

    do_{penaltyUrlBreakPenaltymathchar`_}%

    do?{penaltyUrlBreakPenaltymathchar`?}%

    do#{penaltyUrlBreakPenaltymathchar"23}%

    do%{Url@percent}%

    do={penaltyUrlBreakPenaltymathchar`=penaltyUrlBreakPenalty}%

    do&{penaltyUrlBreakPenaltymathchar`&penaltyUrlBreakPenalty}%

    do {Url@space}do^^M{Url@space}%

    Url@force@Tilde}%

}

makeatother



raggedright



begin{document}



hsize 5cm



section*{Default Style}



url{https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/477945/control-url-breaking}



section*{ACS Style}



urlstyle{acs}



url{https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/477945/control-url-breaking}



end{document}

You'll need three different packages, so include this in your code:

usepackage{url}

usepackage{breakurl}

usepackage[breaklinks]{hyperref}

Now, you'll just need to add defUrlBreaks{do/do-} if you want to be able to break it after a / or a -.

For example, if the entry was this:

@misc{GartnerNFC,

author = "Clark, Sarah",

howpublished = "nfcworld.com",

month = aug,

note = "Cited July 3rd 2012",

title = "{Gartner’s Hype Cycle places NFC at ‘Peak of Inflated Expectations’}",

url = "http://www.nfcworld.com/2011/08/11/39008/gartner-hype-cycle-places-nfc-at-peak-of-inflated-expectations",

year = "2011"

}

It will look like this:

For other options, look into the url package documentation.