Biblatex still won't print bibliography

Question

I have read all the related questions and taken all the suggested steps (well, the ones that had anything to do with my situation since for example I am not using XeLaTeX). As far as I can see, this file ought to produce a pdf with one citation in it and a bibliography with that entry.

\documentclass{amsart}
\usepackage[]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{refs.bib}
\begin{document}
\cite{FefCF}
\printbibliography

\end{document}

Instead it produces a pdf with the name FefCF printed in boldface and no bibliography.

I am using TeXworks and have run both BibTeX and pdfLaTex+MakeIndex+BibTeX repeatedly in many combinations.

To be clear, the reference FefCF is indeed in the file refs.bib (and has been used many time with BibTeX) and it is in the same folder as this file, namely C:/Users/Colin/Documents/TeX Files. I have also tried the full location name C:/Users/Colin/Documents/TeX Files/refs.bib to specify the bib resource. That makes no difference.

Welcome to TeX.SX! \usepackage[]{biblatex} is not a proper call to biblatex especially if you want to run it with BibTeX. Try \usepackage[style=authoryear, backend=bibtex]{biblatex} instead; or install biber and try \usepackage[style=authoryear, backend=biber]{biblatex} (then, of course, you will have to run pdlfatex + biber + pdflatex + pdflatex). — moewe, Sep 28 '13 at 15:34
@moewe Thanks. Biber is installed and I have tried this with biber and bibtex. TeXworks does not give me an option of running biber the way it does bibtex. Anyway no combination of pdflatex and bibtex has worked for me yet. — Colin McLarty, Sep 28 '13 at 15:43
Mhhhh. What is the (.log) output of the LaTeX and BibTeX/biber runs respectively? Note that if at all the exact document you posted only works with biber (I might have replied glibly when I said your call was not proper as it should work with biber). For biber in TeXworks see How to automate using biber in MiKTeX-TeXworks and Dummies Guide to Biber — moewe, Sep 28 '13 at 15:46
I'd also consider using the wonderful arara tool to automate the process, as shown in How do I set up my LaTeX document to enable me to cite from my BibTeX bibliography? — cmhughes, Sep 28 '13 at 15:52
@moewe Thanks. This is the third time I've spent more than a few hours working on Biblatex and I'm sure I will get it to work some day. But for now (with 72 hours to get a book review to a journal) I'll go back to the familiar frustrations of BibTeX. — Colin McLarty, Sep 28 '13 at 16:21
If you were thinking of using biblatex in a submission to a journal, you might want to read this Biblatex: submitting to a journal (it does not look that bright). — moewe, Sep 28 '13 at 16:26
Ah, thanks. Bad news. Not so bad for me since I have yet to master biblatex anyway. But I'm sure in the long run biblatex will get ahead of bibtex in publishing. — Colin McLarty, Sep 28 '13 at 16:35
Having read the comments in the question linked above one might pessimistically suspect it will be quite a long run indeed. — moewe, Sep 28 '13 at 16:54

score 13 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 28 '13 at 16:36

13

The main hurdles with biblatex/biber are:

You are not calling biber at all but bibtex (check the .blg file if it starts with "biber" or "bibtex").
biber fails due to a problem with the cache files. Run biber --cache on the command line and delete the folder you get as output.
biber fails due to an error in your bib file: Check the blg file.

answered Sep 28 '13 at 16:36

Ulrike Fischer

327,261

Is 1 a problem when I have set backend=bibtex? – Colin McLarty Sep 28 '13 at 17:43
@ColinMcLarty It should not be at all, except, of course, for cases in which biber is necessary. Remember to remove all auxiliary files though. – moewe Sep 28 '13 at 19:25
@colinMcLarty: 1 + 2 are biber specific. – Ulrike Fischer Sep 28 '13 at 21:05
FYI, I had error 3 because of an empty entry in my .bib file that I had not seen. – Karlo Feb 07 '24 at 18:31

Mukesh Chapagain · Answer 2 · 2015-04-19T13:33:29.693

Biblatex now uses Biber as default backend. It used to use BibTeX before.

Here are the steps to make bibliography display for your LaTeX document:

Install Biber

On Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install biber

Using biber as backend

\usepackage{biblatex}
OR,
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}

Then compilation should be done with the following commands (assuming your LaTeX file name is myfile.tex):

pdflatex myfile
biber myfile
pdflatex myfile

Using bibtex as backend

\usepackage[backend=bibtex]{biblatex}

Then you have to run the following commands to compile the file (myfile.tex):

pdflatex myfile
bibtex myfile
pdflatex myfile

Now, you should be able to see bibliography page when you open your pdf file (myfile.pdf in this example).

Reference: http://www.latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=22023#p74103

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 25 '23 at 15:26

For some reason, they above answers did not work for me. So I provide an alternative, in case others experience the same issue:

Files:

report.tex
refs.bib

The relevant sections from report.tex:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
% For using bibtex
%
% The `noadjust` parameter turns off the behaviour when this package
% inserts spaces before references.
\usepackage[noadjust]{cite}
\begin{document}
% ...
\bibliography{refs}{}
\bibliographystyle{alpha}
\end{document}

The compilation command is two-fold, that is I need to compile both with pdflatex and with bibtex - both are done from the (Linux-)terminal:

pdflatex report.tex
bibtex report.aux
pdflatex report.tex

This will, in my case, compile the reference database and properly display a list of references in the pdf-output.

Biblatex still won't print bibliography

3 Answers3

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