Talk:LaTeX/Bibliography Management

I don't understand nothing at all. THERE IS NO ONE USABLE SOURCE CODE ON HOW TO CREATE BIBLIOGRAPHY. What do I have to write in .tex and what to write in an outer .bib file. Please, write only ONE solution what is works. Just for the beginners.

there is no copyright notice on the source page, or am i missing it. 70.17.91.192 17:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think we need it: all the authors are properly referenced in LaTeX/Authors. Alessio Damato 20:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The biblatex package is a recent addition to the bibliography process that allows greater flexibility than standard bibtex. It might be worthwhile to write a section about this package.

We should mention  somewhere on this page. - This is there; but there is a contradiction between these instructions and the instructions on multiple references (possibly this is a fault with LaTeX and cannot be resolved here)

When introducing the natbib package, the bibliographystyle is mentioned. But this is a concept related to BibTeX, that come later in the page. This can be confusing for the reader.

Corrected Citavi entry. Citavi is straightforward commercial software (not free as claimed), which offers a size-limited version (100 entries) for free.

The paragraph describing the  command mentions that you can specify a different directory - $HOME/....  This will not work. The $ will be interpreted as the start of a math element.

Passages written in first person (plagiarism?)
There are multiple passages written in the first person referencing a "Tutorial". This seems as text was just copied from somewhere else. I propose to change the respecting sections. --2003:DC:5F1D:5C00:6EDD:81A6:AA94:832E (discuss) 21:37, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Bibliography styles: how to reduce vertical space between bibliography entries?
I wonder how to reduce the vertical space between bibtex entries - while I can reduce the linespace with the "setspace" packages (works fine) I don't manage to get more entries on a page... ? thanks for a hint, Bumbulski (talk) 19:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Found it: the natbib style allows to define . Redefine with (0pt is no line space between items; here: have a bit of space):   Bumbulski (talk) 19:00, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The LaTeX code is too small, I think it would be better to enlarge it

Explain natbib earlier
Shouldn't Natbib be explained earlier in this chapter than at the very end? Switching from plain BibTeX to Natbib is a pain, while setting Natbib to numeric mode is quite easy. Elsevier uses Natbib for all LaTeX journals... Qwertyus (talk) 21:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Correcting "Add the Bibliography to the Table of Contents as numbered item"
If I'm not mistaken, the tips provided here add an extra blank page before the bibliography (at least in the report document type). The solution to remove it seems to be provided here: http://www.latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10573 Should this be mentioned? --192.54.144.229 (discuss) 09:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Easiest way I've found to add bibliography to the TOC is:

This works because usually the bibsection is chapter* (which has no toc entry). You can also modify this to use addcontentsline after the \bibname which is a mix of my solution and the one already used on the page. --Ayrn (discuss • contribs) 10:37, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The mention of VIM at the end
There is mention of compiling the latex document and aux file with bibtex through vim. Though this is good, it seems misplaced. There could be a section devoted to integrating latex into different editors. Also, you can get bibtex to process the file more simply by using the command...

!bibtex %<

Add BibLaTeX section?
Should BibLaTeX maybe be mentioned? Benregn (discuss • contribs) 18:53, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Definitly! Especialy the Multiple Biliographies part is worth noting about it. Its so easy to do it with biblatex: That's it. --Wombalton (discuss • contribs) 22:15, 12 November 2013 (UTC) I just added a subsection on biblatex for printing multiple bibliographies: LaTeX/Bibliography_Management Bro4 (discuss • contribs) 01:50, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

May I suggest adding information on how to include the bibliography in the ToC? It would be helpful to add the following two lines:

To add the bibliography to the table of contents, add the option "heading=bibintoc" after \printbibliography: --AndyKB87 (discuss • contribs) 11:38, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Isn't that feature already explained, though not 100 % the same way? --Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs) 15:23, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Alphabeticising "von" names
The John von Neumann example is actually more complicated than discussed here. I don't know about JvN in particular, but often people with de Surname, von Surname and van Surname like it to appear as "(de|von|van) Surname, Firstname" BUT they want to be alphabeticised under the first letter of Surname (so, N for JvN), not under d for "de" or "v" for "(von|van)". This page doesn't seem to deal with this issue, and probably should. Likewise, examples for name postfixes that aren't part of the surname, like the researcher Hal Duamé III or Firstname Surname Jr. Thayvian (discuss • contribs) 02:10, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Fields not displayed
I had a problem when copying-pasting templates from this article.

With the following template, the "year" filed was not displayed in my document.

But with this template, it was:

It seems to be linked to the position of the fields with "%". Can anybody confirm ? If this is the case it would have to be mentioned in the article.


 * Actually, it is mentioned in the article, before the start of the examples:
 * "Be careful if you copy the following templates, the % sign is not valid to comment out lines in bibtex files. If you want to comment out a line, you have to put it outside the entry."
 * In fact, if I try to compile these entries with the erroneus entries preceded by, bibtex just crashes. I think the examples should be reworked to make them copy-pastable, however it will take some time until I can get around to it. --Lpd-Lbr (discuss • contribs) 12:49, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I replaced the  with   which went faster than i anticipated. --Lpd-Lbr (discuss • contribs) 13:08, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Mention something about biber?
Biber is being used more frequently and recommended more often now (http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/35233/bibtex-and-chicago-style-citations). Should this article be extended to have a quick blurb about biber?

thebibliography environment is not supported by texlipse
I took a decent while for me to figure this one out. That example at the top of the page does not work. An introductory example should be as accessible as possible, I think. At least we should warn texlipse users about this.130.234.207.147 (discuss) 14:10, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Underscore
Maybe it should be mentioned somewhere that it is not a good idea to use the underscore character in your bibtexkey (as is written in "Getting current LaTeX document to use your .bib file"). Apparently Latex doesn't like it much when you \cite{bibtex_key}

131.180.138.34 (discuss) 10:56, 28 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Can you be more specific? Every single key in my main .bib has 1 or more underscores and it works fine, all I can find by googling is that starting a key with underscore is anissue. ChrisHodgesUK (discuss • contribs) 12:32, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Merge
The page LaTeX/More Bibliographies is mostly redundent and far less complete than LaTeX/Bibliography Management. It should be merged into it. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 09:00, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Babelbib inconsistent name ordering
Maybe the section "Localizing bibliography appearance" should include a paragraph about how to customize how babelbib writes names in bibliography entries. Because the babelbib styles (e.g. babplain) writes the first author as "Lastname, Forename" and subsequent authors as "Forename Lastname" to emphasize its ordering by lastname. However there exists additional style variants suffixed with "-fl" (e.g. babplain-fl) or "-lf" to consistently writes names as respectively "Forename Lastname" or "Lastname, Forename".

See "4 Available bibliography styles" in the bablebib documentation (http://mirrors.ctan.org/biblio/bibtex/contrib/babelbib/babelbib.pdf) for more information. Johslarsen (discuss • contribs)

Usage of "?" rather than "%" for optional BibTeX fields
Right now, the BibTeX examples use  for optional fields. This causes errors when copy-pasting for people who haven't read the line regarding that they're being used only for indicating optional fields and not actual BibTeX syntax. I propose using  instead of   for optional fields instead, which will make the field be ignored (since there's no   field, for example, although that's a valid field name), kinda making it behave like a comment (although it does look more like an "optional field", compare with syntax such as Tcl documentation's   for optional parameters). --Cousteau (discuss • contribs) 16:30, 10 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Good and fair point, i'll work on that and mention a few things about leaving real comments in databases. -- Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs)

Complete rewrite, including ordering topics and incorporating biblatex properly
I think the page needs a rewrite. Parts of it are messy, many solutions and hacks are presented that emerged over the years. It is a bit cluttered. On the other hand, biblatex is merely mentioned, but right now, more and more people are using biblatex for their final reports. I suggest to explain the concept of citing in LaTeX in general, quickly explain differences (advantages and disadvantages) between the BibTeX-system and the biblatex-system and split everything following in two separate pages linked from here. That would also include merging material from LaTeX/More Bibliographies as already mentioned above by User:Ambrevar.

-- Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs)


 * Agreed, a reorganization/rewrite of the page is probably a good thing. The biblatex-section is for the moment wedged in between two topics really only concerned with the BibTeX-approach, so separating and promoting that more sounds good. --Torbjorn T.

"Entry type reference" and "field reference" links dead
The "entry type reference" and "field reference" links in LaTeX/Bibliography_Management are dead. --Waclawj (discuss • contribs) 18:12, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Multiple citations
It says that

''When a sequence of multiple citations are needed, you should use a single  command. The citations are then separated by commas. Note that you must not use spaces between the citations. Here's an example:

The result will then be shown as citations inside the same brackets.''

but I don't think that method is compliant with the IEEE citation style.


 * IEEE uses another style, that is correct. --Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs) 09:19, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

standard fields and requirements
Currently a huge table tells about what fields are available and required, but no sane soul is using the standard styles anymore. Natbib provides bst-files with own fields, journals provide bst files with special fields, biblatex defines some other fields. I suggest to drop this huge lump of limited useful information and add a hint about the documentation of the current style/bst-file.--Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs) 15:12, 29 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I have decided to drop the field/entry tables for bibtex and biblatex as well as the complete Standard Templates section. Thoughts? Any objections? --Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs) 16:50, 10 March 2016 (UTC)