bibtex
minimus
I am trying to work with bibtex but I cannot figure out how I get started. I
have Led (Latexeditor) and Miktex installed. I open a tex document and write
down what is pasted below. When I compile it I am supposed to get a bib file
but I don't. Maybe I don't have bibtex installed? Under program files >
Miktex 2.7 I see a file named as bibtex. So is bibtex installed? What is
bibtex? Is it a program that I need to open?
I ask stupid questions but, amazingly, the 5 latex introductory documents
were not able to make me have my .bib file. Either I am stupid, or there is
no source explaining step by step to get the .bib file....
\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\begin{document}
\bibliographystyle{alpha}
This paper will this /cite{reference}.
\bibliography{bibfile}
\end{document}
Alan Munn
"minimus" <min...@live.co.uk> wrote:
(This should be \cite)
>
> \bibliography{bibfile}
>
> \end{document}
You need to create a bib file. The usual way to do this is to use a
reference manager. The most widely used one for Windows, AFAIK, is
Jabref <http://jabref.sourceforge.net/>.
You use Jabref to create your bib file and then you run latex on your
source file, then bibtex, then latex again.
bib files are expected to be found in your local texmf folder in the
folder bibtex/bib/
Also, if you want access to more bibliography styles, it would make
sense to load the natbib pacakge.
Alan
minimus
"Alan Munn" <am...@msu.edu> wrote in message
news:amunn-07EEED....@news.eternal-september.org...
I very much appreciate your explanations. Thanks! What surprises me is that
it is quite difficult to find a straightforward explanation in google. When
I type bibtex, I hardly get any web page explaining simple what one needs to
do. Even in pdf files explaining latex, there is no simple step by step
procedure that explains what one should do. I don't understand....
But thanks for your help!
Alan Munn
"minimus" <min...@live.co.uk> wrote:
> "Alan Munn" <am...@msu.edu> wrote in message
> news:amunn-07EEED....@news.eternal-september.org...
> > In article <hn8qrm$ne2$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> > "minimus" <min...@live.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> People can someone please provide some help.
> >>
> >> I am trying to work with bibtex but I cannot figure out how I get
> >> started. I
> >> have Led (Latexeditor) and Miktex installed. I open a tex document and
> >> write
> >> down what is pasted below. When I compile it I am supposed to get a bib
> >> file
> >> but I don't. Maybe I don't have bibtex installed? Under program files >
> >> Miktex 2.7 I see a file named as bibtex. So is bibtex installed? What is
> >> bibtex? Is it a program that I need to open?
> >>
> >> I ask stupid questions but, amazingly, the 5 latex introductory documents
> >> were not able to make me have my .bib file. Either I am stupid, or there
> >> is
> >> no source explaining step by step to get the .bib file....
> > You need to create a bib file. The usual way to do this is to use a
> > reference manager. The most widely used one for Windows, AFAIK, is
> > Jabref <http://jabref.sourceforge.net/>.
> >
> > You use Jabref to create your bib file and then you run latex on your
> > source file, then bibtex, then latex again.
> >
> > bib files are expected to be found in your local texmf folder in the
> > folder bibtex/bib/
> >
> > Also, if you want access to more bibliography styles, it would make
> > sense to load the natbib pacakge.
> >
> > Alan
>
> I very much appreciate your explanations. Thanks! What surprises me is that
> it is quite difficult to find a straightforward explanation in google. When
> I type bibtex, I hardly get any web page explaining simple what one needs to
> do. Even in pdf files explaining latex, there is no simple step by step
> procedure that explains what one should do. I don't understand....
>
> But thanks for your help!
>
>
I think you're right about this, although you don't say where you
looked. The UK TeX FAQ (always a good first start) does have the
following entry:
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=buildbib
and there are a couple of other useful entries there too. But your main
point is well taken, especially since the FAQ entry, although accurate,
probably doesn't reflect most users' actual practice, in that for most
of us, pointing to either Jabref (for Windows and Linux) or Bibdesk (for
MacOS) should probably have more prominence.
Alan
Robin Fairbairns
for example:
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=usebibtex
i don't know why google fails to find it -- it's entirely dynamic, but
google _used_ to know about an earlier version of the faq.
the faq has a whole section on bibtex, including a subsection on
building your own bibtex file.
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge
Robin Fairbairns
> and there are a couple of other useful entries there too. But your main
> point is well taken, especially since the FAQ entry, although accurate,
> probably doesn't reflect most users' actual practice, in that for most
> of us, pointing to either Jabref (for Windows and Linux) or Bibdesk (for
> MacOS) should probably have more prominence.
i suppose i could play with jabref, but there's no way i could possibly
experiment with bibdesk. very occasionally, people send updated
material to the faq-devel address, but mostly the content of the faq,
and updates to it, come from my efforts. if there's no way i can know
about something, there's going to be nothing in the faq about it.
i don't even know if jabref and/or bibdesk are the only options
available. what's more, i don't have bibliographies of my own, since i
no longer publish anything other than the faq.
perhaps it's time someone else took over the faq. it's oviously
becoming ever more irrelevant, because of my shortcomings.
otoh, rather few people use it, so perhaps it should just be forgotten
about.
Joseph Wright
> On 10/03/10 23:04, Alan Munn wrote:
>
> > and there are a couple of other useful entries there too. But your main
> > point is well taken, especially since the FAQ entry, although accurate,
> > probably doesn't reflect most users' actual practice, in that for most
> > of us, pointing to either Jabref (for Windows and Linux) or Bibdesk (for
> > MacOS) should probably have more prominence.
>
> i suppose i could play with jabref, but there's no way i could possibly
> experiment with bibdesk. very occasionally, people send updated
> material to the faq-devel address, but mostly the content of the faq,
> and updates to it, come from my efforts. if there's no way i can know
> about something, there's going to be nothing in the faq about it.
It would be good to at least point to JabRef, perhaps something like:
There are a number of specialised tools which can be used to manage
bibliographies. Some of these use .bib as their native format,
others
offer .bib exporting. Examples include:
- JabRef. A cross-platform bibliography tool written in Java,
which
uses the .bib format natively.
- BibDesk. A MacOS X tool which uses the .bib format natively, and
is included in the popular MacTeX distribution.
- EndNote. A commercial bibliography tool with its own storage
format, which also has an on-line version (MyEndNoteWeb).
Written by
ISI, who also control the popular Web of Science database.
- Zotero. An on-line bibliography management tool which works as
an
add on to Mozilla Firefox and is designed to allow access to
references from multiple locations. Offers .bib format as an
export
option.
Most of these management tools offer additional features, such as
links
to downloaded PDFs, integration with search tools and so on.
--
Joseph Wright
Turgut Durduran
>
> perhaps it's time someone else took over the faq. it's oviously
> becoming ever more irrelevant, because of my shortcomings.
>
> otoh, rather few people use it, so perhaps it should just be forgotten
> about.
I use it! and I think it should be used a lot more than it normally is
used!
Alan Munn
Robin Fairbairns <rf...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
Sorry Robin, this wasn't meant to be a jab(ref) at you :-). I was
mainly trying to figure out if the OP hadn't found your FAQ answer or if
it hadn't provided enough information. You certainly can't be expected
to have direct experience of all the software available to support TeX
on various systems. Joseph provided a bit of alternative text for the
FAQ in his message. I should have done that in my message too.
I certainly don't think the FAQ is irrelevant; perhaps the issue is
*how* to maintain it. Maybe it should be turned into a wiki form so
that it can be updated collaboratively rather than having people send
all their suggestions to you. I don't know if this possibility has been
raised before.
>
> otoh, rather few people use it, so perhaps it should just be forgotten
> about.
Do we really know this? (like declining page hits?) I know that I still
consult it from time to time, and I'm sure others do.
Alan
Nicola Talbot
>
> perhaps it's time someone else took over the faq. it's oviously
> becoming ever more irrelevant, because of my shortcomings.
>
> otoh, rather few people use it, so perhaps it should just be forgotten
> about.
>
I have lots of pointers to the FAQ in my "LaTeX for Complete Novices"
tutorial[1]. (They're marginal notes in the PDF files and [...] links in
the HTML version.) It's very useful to have a source of further
information for the reader so I don't have to bog introductory material
down with loads of extra stuff.
I'm sorry I can't offer to take over: if I took on anything else, I'd
have to stop maintaining my packages.
comp.lang.perl.misc have a system where random FAQ entries are posted to
the newsgroup on a daily basis. I think it helps raise awareness of the
FAQ and sometimes people reply to it if the answer needs updating. I
don't know how easy it would be to do that for the TeX FAQ.
Thanks for your work on it, Robin.
Regards
Nicola Talbot
[1] http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~nlct/latex/novices/
--
Home: http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~nlct/
LaTeX Related Information: http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~nlct/latex/
Creating a LaTeX Minimal Example:
http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~nlct/latex/minexample/
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---
Joseph Wright
> I certainly don't think the FAQ is irrelevant; perhaps the issue is
> *how* to maintain it. Maybe it should be turned into a wiki form so
> that it can be updated collaboratively rather than having people send
> all their suggestions to you. I don't know if this possibility has been
> raised before.
Something along these lines was discussed at the UK-TUG AGM in
November: both Robin and I were there. Robin does an excellent job of
maintaining the FAQ, and more importantly keeping the advice up-to-
date and correct. The problem with a wiki-type approach is that there
is a danger of getting less-good advice in amongst the good stuff.
(See some of the poor examples you can find via Google, using old
packages, low-level hacks and so on.) The other good thing about the
current FAQ is that it's available in TeX/PDF format as well as via
the web. If you go for a wiki, that's going to be hard. (I've looked
at this idea a bit and felt that none of the wiki solutions really
seem to nail this.) Perhaps a lower-complexity alternative would be an
SVN (or some such) for the FAQ source, with commit access by
invitation?
Robin, I think it's fair to say we all appreciate your work on the
FAQ!
--
Joseph Wright
Robin Fairbairns
> On Mar 17, 1:48 am, Alan Munn<am...@msu.edu> wrote:
>> I certainly don't think the FAQ is irrelevant; perhaps the issue is
>> *how* to maintain it. Maybe it should be turned into a wiki form so
>> that it can be updated collaboratively rather than having people send
>> all their suggestions to you. I don't know if this possibility has been
>> raised before.
>
> Something along these lines was discussed at the UK-TUG AGM in
> November: both Robin and I were there. Robin does an excellent job of
> maintaining the FAQ, and more importantly keeping the advice up-to-
> date and correct. The problem with a wiki-type approach is that there
> is a danger of getting less-good advice in amongst the good stuff.
a wiki to provide suggestions for the faq might be useful. this is an
idea that has only today occurred to me this morning, after reading
alan's post.
> (See some of the poor examples you can find via Google, using old
> packages, low-level hacks and so on.) The other good thing about the
> current FAQ is that it's available in TeX/PDF format as well as via
> the web. If you go for a wiki, that's going to be hard. (I've looked
> at this idea a bit and felt that none of the wiki solutions really
> seem to nail this.)
i was convinced before you started the paragraph ;-) (i'm no great fan
of wikis, though my wife runs her business that way.)
>Perhaps a lower-complexity alternative would be an
> SVN (or some such) for the FAQ source, with commit access by
> invitation?
karl has offered to make an svn for me; however, the state of the faq
sources at the time was such that i didn't care to go that way immediately.
the sources are now far less unwieldy (i did some restructuring for
precisely this purpose), and i need to plan a way towards using it.
> Robin, I think it's fair to say we all appreciate your work on the
> FAQ!
that some people do is appreciated.
Joseph Wright
> On 17/03/10 12:47, Joseph Wright wrote:
>
> > On Mar 17, 1:48 am, Alan Munn<am...@msu.edu> wrote:
> >> I certainly don't think the FAQ is irrelevant; perhaps the issue is
> >> *how* to maintain it. Maybe it should be turned into a wiki form so
> >> that it can be updated collaboratively rather than having people send
> >> all their suggestions to you. I don't know if this possibility has been
> >> raised before.
>
> > Something along these lines was discussed at the UK-TUG AGM in
> > November: both Robin and I were there. Robin does an excellent job of
> > maintaining the FAQ, and more importantly keeping the advice up-to-
> > date and correct. The problem with a wiki-type approach is that there
> > is a danger of getting less-good advice in amongst the good stuff.
>
> a wiki to provide suggestions for the faq might be useful. this is an
> idea that has only today occurred to me this morning, after reading
> alan's post.
>
> > (See some of the poor examples you can find via Google, using old
> > packages, low-level hacks and so on.) The other good thing about the
> > current FAQ is that it's available in TeX/PDF format as well as via
> > the web. If you go for a wiki, that's going to be hard. (I've looked
> > at this idea a bit and felt that none of the wiki solutions really
> > seem to nail this.)
>
> i was convinced before you started the paragraph ;-) (i'm no great fan
> of wikis, though my wife runs her business that way.)
>
Interesting idea: I guess the plan would be anyone could commit to the
wiki, and then you (or some other trusted person) would move things
into the FAQ as/when appropriate?
If you need the wiki hosting somewhere I'm sure that UK-TUG can help
out (this would be, let's see, ah yes my job as webmaster!).
--
Joseph Wright
Alan Munn
<d712eb23-bfca-4965...@e7g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,
Joseph Wright <joseph...@morningstar2.co.uk> wrote:
I think this would be a really nice compromise, and might remove some of
the burden from Robin to be the all knowing all doing FAQ oracle.
Alan
John Dickinson
> In article
> <d712eb23-bfca-4965-a3d9-9ddcc8f95...@e7g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,
I appreciate Robin's and everyone else's work. I use the FAQ. I also
use: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX
I am a LaTeX person at the beginner level for years.
--Johnd
Jonathan Fine
> Something along these lines was discussed at the UK-TUG AGM in
> November: both Robin and I were there. Robin does an excellent job of
> maintaining the FAQ, and more importantly keeping the advice up-to-
> date and correct. The problem with a wiki-type approach is that there
> is a danger of getting less-good advice in amongst the good stuff.
> (See some of the poor examples you can find via Google, using old
> packages, low-level hacks and so on.) The other good thing about the
> current FAQ is that it's available in TeX/PDF format as well as via
> the web. If you go for a wiki, that's going to be hard. (I've looked
> at this idea a bit and felt that none of the wiki solutions really
> seem to nail this.) Perhaps a lower-complexity alternative would be an
> SVN (or some such) for the FAQ source, with commit access by
> invitation?
I was also at the that meeting and remember the discussion. Indeed, I
think I may have started it.
Regarding wikis. I'm all in favour of social web sites, but I think
something like StackOverflow might be better than a wiki:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/latex
It's important that we 'eat our own dogfood' and ensure that we produce
both HTML and PDF. I think Python does this best:
http://docs.python.org/
http://docs.python.org/download.html
They used to use LaTeX2HTML (which the TeX FAQ continues to use) but now
they use Sphinx, with Restructured Text for markup:
http://sphinx.pocoo.org/
http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
With a distributed version control system (such as Mercurial) its easy
for someone to create patch files for improvements to the FAQ. They
simply clone the official repository, make their changes, and then
submit the change set (aka patch file).
I'm considering spending a few hours doing something like this. Anyone
else interested?
> Robin, I think it's fair to say we all appreciate your work on the
> FAQ!
I also appreciate Robin's work.
--
Jonathan
Robin Fairbairns
> Joseph Wright wrote:
>
>> Something along these lines was discussed at the UK-TUG AGM in
>> November: both Robin and I were there. Robin does an excellent job of
>> maintaining the FAQ, and more importantly keeping the advice up-to-
>
> Regarding wikis. I'm all in favour of social web sites, but I think
> something like StackOverflow might be better than a wiki:
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/latex
>
> It's important that we 'eat our own dogfood' and ensure that we produce
> both HTML and PDF.
as opposed to what we do now?
> I think Python does this best:
> http://docs.python.org/
> http://docs.python.org/download.html
>
> They used to use LaTeX2HTML (which the TeX FAQ continues to use)
the tex faq has never used latex2html; the original script was written
by alan jeffrey but i've made a lot of changes since.
the difference (between texfaq2html and latex2html) is that the former
can operate in real time.
personally, i don't see a lot of difference between what python offers,
and what other projects offer, but jonathan makes it clear that they're
the type example of all that's good in documentation (he's said it in at
least one other context, that i've seen). python's site is certainly
better-looking than the faq, as far as html goes; but that's not saying
an awful lot, and no-one seriously denies that the faq is available in
html...
Jonathan Fine
>> Regarding wikis. I'm all in favour of social web sites, but I think
>> something like StackOverflow might be better than a wiki:
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/latex
>>
>> It's important that we 'eat our own dogfood' and ensure that we produce
>> both HTML and PDF.
>
> as opposed to what we do now?
No, as opposed to StackOverflow and many other sites, which do not
provide typeset PDF.
>> I think Python does this best:
>> http://docs.python.org/
>> http://docs.python.org/download.html
>>
>> They used to use LaTeX2HTML (which the TeX FAQ continues to use)
>
> the tex faq has never used latex2html; the original script was written
> by alan jeffrey but i've made a lot of changes since.
>
> the difference (between texfaq2html and latex2html) is that the former
> can operate in real time.
Thank you for the correction. I've looked to the texfaq2html program
and not found it. Anyone know where it might be?
http://ctan.org/cgi-bin/filenameSearch.py?filename=texfaq2html
> personally, i don't see a lot of difference between what python offers,
> and what other projects offer,
You can, for example, download the Python HTML and it has a search
capability that then works without needing a network connection!
> but jonathan makes it clear that they're
> the type example of all that's good in documentation (he's said it in at
> least one other context, that i've seen). python's site is certainly
> better-looking than the faq, as far as html goes; but that's not saying
> an awful lot, and no-one seriously denies that the faq is available in
> html...
Yes, a lot could be done with the HTML presentation of the FAQ.
--
Jonathan
Joris
You may also want to look at the bibtex output produced by tools/
databases like Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com , set
preferences to bibtex), Zotero, and Jstor.
Best,
J.
Peter Flynn
Robin Fairbairns
> Thank you for the correction. I've looked to the texfaq2html program and
> not found it. Anyone know where it might be?
> http://ctan.org/cgi-bin/filenameSearch.py?filename=texfaq2html
it's on the www.tex.ac.uk cgi scripts directory, only. i don't publish
it, since i have no doubt that it's hackable, so i sit behind a wall of
"security by obscurity" (and firewalls, of course).
if you have a development proposal, i would be interested to listen, but
i don't want to offer it to all and sundry. in any case, i already have
a development project to produce a more responsive (and sane) version,
but it still doesn't address the appearance issues (much).
> Yes, a lot could be done with the HTML presentation of the FAQ.
someone who has expertise of some sort with web design would be very
welcome. the lab's content management scheme is home-brewed and is not
afaict amenable to use in the context of the faq. its output is pretty
reasonable (www.cl.cam.ac.uk, ignore that beastly flashing image if you
can... :-( )
Jonathan Fine
> On 20/03/10 14:32, Jonathan Fine wrote:
>> Thank you for the correction. I've looked to the texfaq2html program and
>> not found it. Anyone know where it might be?
>> http://ctan.org/cgi-bin/filenameSearch.py?filename=texfaq2html
>
> it's on the www.tex.ac.uk cgi scripts directory, only. i don't publish
> it, since i have no doubt that it's hackable, so i sit behind a wall of
> "security by obscurity" (and firewalls, of course).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity
As I recall, but have not found a URL for, there was a nineteenth
century debate among lockmakers on precisely this.
> if you have a development proposal, i would be interested to listen, but
> i don't want to offer it to all and sundry. in any case, i already have
> a development project to produce a more responsive (and sane) version,
> but it still doesn't address the appearance issues (much).
I'm very interested in developing improved LaTeX to XML solutions and
see the FAQ as an important test case.
Please do say more about your development project.
--
Jonathan
Robin Fairbairns
> Robin Fairbairns wrote:
>> On 20/03/10 14:32, Jonathan Fine wrote:
>>> Thank you for the correction. I've looked to the texfaq2html program and
>>> not found it. Anyone know where it might be?
>>> http://ctan.org/cgi-bin/filenameSearch.py?filename=texfaq2html
>>
>> it's on the www.tex.ac.uk cgi scripts directory, only. i don't publish
>> it, since i have no doubt that it's hackable, so i sit behind a wall of
>> "security by obscurity" (and firewalls, of course).
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity
as it happens, my grandmother also knew how to suck eggs.
>> if you have a development proposal, i would be interested to listen, but
>> i don't want to offer it to all and sundry. in any case, i already have
>> a development project to produce a more responsive (and sane) version,
>> but it still doesn't address the appearance issues (much).
>
> I'm very interested in developing improved LaTeX to XML solutions and
> see the FAQ as an important test case.
hardly. it's a set of bits of perl designed around a particular set
of macros and requirements; it's not even remotely general-purpose.
> Please do say more about your development project.
maybe some day, if/when i get it out of its present rut. it's based
on the idea that pre-computing things is better than computing on the
fly. computer power is overtaking it -- the site happily serves the
original faq as fast (to my perception) as it does the experimental
version.
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge