How to use Bibtex as a reference library for Latex

31 Comments

Having all your references in a BibTeX-file (*.bib) is more convenient for reusage than typing or copy the whole list of references everytime you are writing a new book, report or article. Therefore, it is worth to learn how to use BibTeX from the beginning, it will save you a lot of time…

BibTeX offers a whole list of entry fields, entry types and different bibliography styles.
Entry fields (standard):

  • address: Publisher’s address (usually just the city, but can be the full address for lesser-known publishers)
  • annote: An annotation for annotated bibliography styles (not typical)
  • author: The name(s) of the author(s) (in the case of more than one author, separated by and)
  • booktitle: The title of the book, if only part of it is being cited
  • chapter: The chapter number
  • crossref: The key of the cross-referenced entry
  • edition: The edition of a book, long form (such as “first” or “second”)
  • editor: The name(s) of the editor(s)
  • eprint: A specification of an electronic publication, often a preprint or a technical report
  • howpublished: How it was published, if the publishing method is nonstandard
  • institution: The institution that was involved in the publishing, but not necessarily the publisher
  • journal: The journal or magazine the work was published in
  • key: A hidden field used for specifying or overriding the alphabetical order of entries (when the “author” and “editor” fields are missing). Note that this is very different from the key (mentioned just after this list) that is used to cite or cross-reference the entry.
  • month: The month of publication (or, if unpublished, the month of creation)
  • note: Miscellaneous extra information
  • number: The “number” of a journal, magazine, or tech-report, if applicable. (Most publications have a “volume”, but no “number” field.)
  • organization: The conference sponsor
  • pages: Page numbers, separated either by commas or double-hyphens
  • publisher: The publisher’s name
  • school: The school where the thesis was written
  • series: The series of books the book was published in (e.g. “The Hardy Boys”)
  • title: The title of the work
  • type: The type of tech-report, for example, “Research Note”
  • url: The WWW address
  • volume: The volume of a journal or multi-volume book
  • year: The year of publication (or, if unpublished, the year of creation)

Entry fields (non-standard):

  • affiliation: The authors affiliation.
  • abstract: An abstract of the work.
  • contents: A Table of Contents
  • copyright: Copyright information.
  • ISBN: The International Standard Book Number.
  • ISSN: The International Standard Serial Number. Used to identify a journal.
  • keywords: Key words used for searching or possibly for annotation.
  • language: The language the document is in.
  • location: A location associated with the entry, such as the city in which a conference took place.
  • LCCN: The Library of Congress Call Number.
  • mrnumber: The Mathematical Reviews number.

In addition, each entry contains a key that is used to cite or cross-reference the entry. This key is the first item in a BibTeX entry, and is not part of any field.

Entry types:

  • @article

An article from a journal or magazine.
Required fields: author, title, journal, year
Optional fields: volume, number, pages, month, note, key

  • @book

A book with an explicit publisher.
Required fields: author/editor, title, publisher, year
Optional fields: volume, series, address, edition, month, note, key

  • @booklet

A work that is printed and bound, but without a named publisher or sponsoring institution.
Required fields: title
Optional fields: author, howpublished, address, month, year, note, key

  • @conference

The same as inproceedings, included for Scribe (markup language) compatibility.
Required fields: author, title, booktitle, year
Optional fields: editor, pages, organization, publisher, address, month, note, key

  • @inbook

A part of a book, which may be a chapter (or section or whatever) and/or a range of pages.
Required fields: author/editor, title, chapter/pages, publisher, year
Optional fields: volume, series, address, edition, month, note, key

  • @incollection

A part of a book having its own title.
Required fields: author, title, booktitle, year
Optional fields: editor, pages, organization, publisher, address, month, note, key

  • @inproceedings

An article in a conference proceedings.
Required fields: author, title, booktitle, year
Optional fields: editor, pages, organization, publisher, address, month, note, key

  • @manual

Technical documentation.
Required fields: title
Optional fields: author, organization, address, edition, month, year, note, key

  • @mastersthesis

A Master’s thesis.
Required fields: author, title, school, year
Optional fields: address, month, note, key

  • @misc

For use when nothing else fits.
Required fields: none
Optional fields: author, title, howpublished, month, year, note, key

  • @phdthesis

A Ph.D. thesis.
Required fields: author, title, school, year
Optional fields: address, month, note, key

  • @proceedings

The proceedings of a conference.
Required fields: title, year
Optional fields: editor, publisher, organization, address, month, note, key

  • @techreport

A report published by a school or other institution, usually numbered within a series.
Required fields: author, title, institution, year
Optional fields: type, number, address, month, note, key

  • @unpublished

A document having an author and title, but not formally published.
Required fields: author, title, note
Optional fields: month, year, key

[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BibTeX]

Example bibliography entry in bib-file:

@article{zhou2005ada,
title = {Adaptive Successive Erosion-based Cell Image Segmentation for p53 Immunohistochemistry in Bladder Inverted Papilloma.},
author={Zhou, H. and Mao, K.},
journal={Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc},
volume={6},
year={2005},
}

Cross-referencing:

It is possible to cross-reference different entries by using the crossreference field, e.g. crossref = {zhou2005ada},

Usage in Latex:

Using your BibTeX-file in Latex is done by specifying a style: \bibliographystyle{style} as well as the bib-file \bibliography{filename1, filename2} (without the bib-extension, just the name). The most commonly used styles are: plain, acm, ieeetr, alpha, abbrv, siam.

Many other styles are available, see here for an extensive list.

PDF generation:

Generating your PDF is a bit of a hassle, as you have to run Latex several times, you need to run the following series of commands:

  1. latex input-file : complains about undefined citations
  2. bibtex input-file : generates a bbl-file
  3. latex input-file : complains about undefined citations
  4. latex input-file

You will have to repeat the procedure every time you add or remove citations, as they will imply changes in the bbl-file.

Note:

  • If you have been using Endnotes so far and want to switch to LaTeX/BibTeX, you won’t need to retype you whole references-database again. It is possible to create a BibTeX-references file from your library in Endnotes.
  • Always look for bibtex-entries on the web. You can sometimes find them in article libraries or on the web page of the authors. They are complete and will save you a lot of time searching and typing the data.

31 Comments

  1. Tom Payne

    I would like to reference newspaper articles and blog entries, which leads to two questions:
    – How does BibTeX accomodate day-of-month fields?
    – What bibstyles printout URL fields?

    Thanks in advance.

    Reply

  2. Hi Tom,

    Thanks for your comment.
    I would suggest you use the @misc entry type (see above).
    To answer your questions:
    – Apparently, there is no day-of-month field, but you can add the day directly to the month field, e.g. month = {March 14,},
    – In order to printout URL’s, you can make use of the howpublished field. Try this: howpublished = {\url{http://texblog.wordpress.com}},
    You will have to add the url-package to your tex-document: \usepackage{url}.

    Hope this was helpful.

    Reply

  3. Carla

    Hi there, I am not sure this is the appropriate place to post but I was wondering if you could help me out.

    my file looks something like:

    \documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{book}
%....body....
\clearpage
\newpage
  \renewcommand{\theequation}{A-\arabic{equation}}
  % redefine the command that creates the equation no.
  \setcounter{equation}{0}  % reset counter
\appendix
\chapter{}
%appendix
???????????
%now I need a references cited
\end{document}

    what can I do so that my section title says “References Cited” in the same format as the chapter heading but so that it has no numbering next to it?

    thanks in advance

    Reply

  4. Hi Clara,

    First of all, does your question have to do anything with your renewcommand of the equation?
    If you only want to change the name of your “References”, you simply have to redefine it:

    \renewcommand\bibname{References Cited}
\begin{thebibliography}{99}
\bibitem{...}
....
\end{thebibliography}

    This is for books, in articles one would use:

    \renewcommand\refname{References Cited}

    By default, the chapter “References” is not numbered.

    Does this answer your question?

    Tom

    Reply

  6. Marios

    Hi,

    I am using TeXnicCenter (on Windows) for writing and compiling my latex files. I use the Latex to PDF option to compile my files, as I usually use pdf images in my files.

    The problem is, I have not managed to successfully compile my first latex file that uses a bibtex library. I have some questions on that:

    If I compile the latex file the first time, the included bibtex file will be converted automatically to bbl?

    I tried to run the compiler 4 times but I still didn’t manage to get the references in the final pdf file.

    Could you please give some instructions on what to do in order to make it work? Is there a possibility that the cause of the problem is the direct conversion from latex to pdf?

    Thanks in advance for your time.

    Marios

    Reply

  8. sam

    Hi,
    I was wondering if you’ve ever used a bib style to display library of congress LCCN with the rest of the citation info. I can’t seem to find a style that does this, and I’m trying to avoid writing my own.

    ~Sam

    Reply

  9. diego

    Hi there,

    Do you know what should I do in order that the field “eprint” appears? Because even if compiling it does not give me back any error it does not show it!
    thanks,
    Diego

    Reply

  10. diego

    I think I found a pair of styles that show up the eprint fields

    h-elsevier2.bst and h-physrev3.bst

    thanks any way

    Diego

    Reply

  12. Niel

    In your “Usage in Latex” section you are saying \bibliographySTYLE twice, the second one should only be \bibliography. It is also important to note that you place those two lines at the position within your document body where you want it to appear (typically the last line), and not in the document preamble.

    Reply

  14. Rojean

    Hey, I am writing my thesis and found the following problem. In my bibliography, at the end of a reference, it displays a hyperlink to the page where it was cited for example:

    Sala, J.J. (2003), Structural analysis, Concrete Factory. 2,4,5

    where the 2,4,5 indicate the page numbers.
    How can I deactivate or remove this hyperlink function?

    I made use of the following styles:

    \usepackage{har2nat}               %(experienced the same with natbib)

\begin{document}
\bibliographystyle{agsm}            %(as close to Harvard-style referencing as possible)
\bibliography{Bibliography}
\end{document}

    and a Bibtex bibliography file

    Thank you

    Reply

    • Hi Rojean,

      Either you are loading the hyperref package with the option shown below or another package is loading the backref package.

      \usepackage[pagebackref=true]{hyperref}

      In case you are using the hyperref-option and you don’t want the page number, just remove it. However, I am not sure how to remove the hyperlink only and keep the page number. Maybe someone else can help…

      Cheers, Tom.

      Reply

  15. Rojean

    Found the hyperref package:

    \usepackage[hypertex,backref=true,bookmarks=true]{hyperref}

    Turned off the backref part and it seems to look as expected by our institution (package below), without the page referencing. Normal hyperlinks are still active between references or citations, making the pdf nice to work with.

    \usepackage[hypertex,backref=false,bookmarks=true]{hyperref}

    Thank you

    Reply

  16. Sarvesh

    Dear Tom,
    If I was trying bibliographystyle{IEEEbib} then in the generated pdf file, the whole Reference section is missing while trying bibliographystyle{ieeetr} instead of bibliographystyle{IEEEbib} its working properly.
    Please suggest me how could i get me reference section with all the references by using bibliographystyle{IEEEbib}.

    I am working on latex (source file) template title “SPECIFICATION FOR COMMON IEEE STYLES” By Gregory L. Plett, Istvan Kollar.

    With Regards
    Sarvesh

    Reply

    • Hmm, hard to say what went wrong. Make sure you have the IEEEbib.bst file in the same directory as the tex files. And run “latex” – “bibtex” – “latex” – “latex” to get the correct output. Here is a working minimal example, just replace the bibtex filename and use an existing citation:

      \documentclass[12pt]{ieee}
\begin{document}
\cite{someone2012}
\bibliographystyle{ieeebib}
\bibliography{bibtex_file}
\end{document}

      Hope it helps,
      Tom.

      Reply

  17. Sarvesh

    Yes, of course! its now working. Thank you for pointing this out.
    Thanks for your kind support and help.

    With Regards
    sarvesh

    Reply

  18. Sarvesh

    Dear Tom,
    I have to cite author name, year, and the reference by using \bibliographystyle{IEEEbib} in my survey paper table.
    Is it possible to extract name, year, reference number from it, As its working with \bibliographystyle{plainnat}. Please help me.

    With Regards
    Sarvesh

    Reply

  19. sarvesh

    Dear Sir,

    I am trying to achieve smaller font size for the text of bibliography entries
    by using following:

    {\footnotesize
\ bibliographystyle{IEEEbib}
\bibliography{testsurvey03}}

    But this also resizes the heading “References” in footnote size.

    How do I resize my all text entries in Reference without changing the font size of Reference heading?

    Please help me.
    Thanks with regards
    sarvesh

    Reply

    • Dear Sarvesh,

      One possibility would be to use the natbib package. Here is an example:

      \documentclass{article}
\usepackage{natbib}
\begin{filecontents}{bibtextest.bib}
@article{lamport1993lat,
  title={{L}a{T}e{X}2$\varepsilon$ The macro package for TEX},
  author={Lamport, L. and others},
  year={1993},
  publisher={Citeseer}}
\end{filecontents}
\begin{document}
See \cite{lamport1993lat}.
\renewcommand{\bibfont}{\footnotesize}
\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{bibtextest.bib}
\end{document}

      Best, Tom.

      Reply

  20. sarvesh

    Dear Sir, Thanks a lot for the help. I got the desired results after trying the above code of command.

    \renewcommand{\bibfont}{\footnotesize}
	\bibliographystyle{IEEEbib}
        \bibliography{testsurvey03}

    Thanks for the help.
    With Regards
    Sarvesh

    Reply

  21. Hi,

    I have created a test.bib file using Mendeley desktop and saved this file in the same folder where my .tex file is located.

    \cite{} does not seem to work. Is there anything i have missed out?

    I add these to my latex file:

    \bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{test}

    before

    \end{document}
    Reply

    • Hi Navin,

      Did you run “bibtex” after typesetting the document? If you did, you’ll find a .bbl file (apart from the .bib and .aux files) in your folder.
      Finally, you’ll need to typeset the file again with “latex”, twice.

      Let me know if you have further questions.

      Cheers, Tom.

      Reply

  22. Alwan S. S.

    hello tom
    could you please help me how to order my refrences in alphabetical order according to the surnames of the authers in latex?

    Many Thanks.
    Suhear

    Reply

    • Hi Suhear,

      I strongly suggest using Biblatex. It uses biber instead of bibtex as a backend. If it helps, post a minimal working example with a few references here and I’ll rewrite it using Biblatex. Generally, the structure is as follows:

      \documentclass{article}
\usepackage[style=alphabetic]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{references.bib}
\begin{document}
\cite{...}
\printbibliography
\end{document}
      Reply

Leave a Reply