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I'm new to LaTeX, and have managed to transfer an essay I'd written in Word into LaTeX fairly satisfactorily, but I'm now trying to sort out the bibliography using BibTeX and I'm completely lost. I have a number of questions.

Should I be using BibTeX or BibLaTeX?

What do I need to put into my LaTeX document and where (i.e. in the preamble or where the bibliography should go)?

I want to use a special bibliography style called lsalike. There are two files, one .bst and one .sty - do I need both of these or just the .bst and where do I put them? (I'm using OS X/a MacBook and TeXShop.) How do I use this style in LaTeX? I believe the style will have small caps for the authors' names (though I can't confirm as I've not got it working yet!) - how do I turn this feature off?

How do I get special symbols in BibTeX entries? (A number of the authors have 'foreign' characters in their names, as do some of the titles.)

Sorry for so many questions and ones that have no doubt been answered before, but I could really do with some help!

jub0bs
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yndajas
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    Welcome to TeX.SX! You can have a look at our starter guide to familiarize yourself further with our format. You should have a look at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Bibliography_Management and http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/25701/bibtex-vs-biber-and-biblatex-vs-natbib. – jub0bs Feb 28 '14 at 22:43
  • What is this bibtex style? I couldn't find it on the we: the search gives things like "is a like" (in 3 words)! – Bernard Feb 28 '14 at 22:50
  • Hi Bernard, see here: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lsalike – yndajas Feb 28 '14 at 23:10
  • Thanks Jubobs, although I'm still pretty clueless! – yndajas Feb 28 '14 at 23:11
  • Do you want to see how a simple document would look using lsalike.bst and lsalike.sty? – jon Mar 01 '14 at 00:31
  • That would be useful, @jon! – yndajas Mar 01 '14 at 11:04
  • I think @Bernard has provided a good link to an example of how to use it, so I won't reduplicate it here unless there is a follow-up question about some detail about usage. As for where you'd put the .sty and the .bst, on a Unix-like system (Linux, Mac, etc.) with TeX Live, you should be able to run this command: kpsewhich --var-value TEXMFHOME. It will give you the 'base' of your personal texmf directory. Then mkdir -p <BASE>/{bibtex/bst/lsalike,tex/latex/lsalike} (where '' is from 1st command). Then copy the .bst into the bst branch, and the .sty into the sty branch. – jon Mar 01 '14 at 16:58
  • @jon Do I do this in Terminal on OS X (Mac)? I copied the first command in and it seemed to accept it, but it didn't accept the second. Am I meant to amend the '' thing? – yndajas Mar 02 '14 at 12:23

1 Answers1

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I think you should use biblatex and biber, not bibtex: the main reasons being that 1) biber understands utf8 encoding, so that accented characters, greek, arabic or chinese will not be a problem; 2) biblatex is much easier to customise (if necessary) than bibtex, as it uses latex-style commands, unlike bibtex, which has a language of its own that uses reverse polish notation.

Your document, as regards the bibliography commands, should contain these lines (for an author-year style; and first names initialised):

\documentclass{article}
.......................
\usepackage[backend=biber, style=authoryear, firstinits]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{name_of_the_bibfile.bib}
.......................

\begin{document}
.......................
\printbibliography

\end{document}

I supposed you want one bibliography, at the end of your essay. But with biblatex, you can have multiple bibliographies, bibliographies with sections, &c.

The simplest way to have a correct .bib file in utf8 encoding is to use JabRef, which provides a convenient interface and will warn you if something goes wrong on filling the different fields. Don't forget to choose the encoding (it's not utf8 by default) via Options -> Preferences -> General.

Bernard
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  • Thanks Bernard. So if I wanted to use lsalike instead of authoryear, I'd just do a straight swap? Where should lsalike be on my system in order for it to find it?

    I'll give this a go when I get a chance and get back to you if I'm still stuck!

     – yndajas Feb 28 '14 at 23:15
  • I don't know: never heard of it (I'm not a specialist of bib style files). With biblatex, it goes through .bbx files, not .bst's So just swapping supposes there exists an isalike.bbx file (and an isalike.cbx for citations, if you use them). As far as I know, it doesn'exist, so it should be created, mainly starting from one of the existing basic styles (alphabetic, author-year, author-title, numeric) and adding a few commands/patches to modify the output where necessary. – Bernard Feb 28 '14 at 23:22
  • I have no idea how you would do that, so would I need to use natbib/BibTeX in the absence of .bbx and .cbx files? – yndajas Feb 28 '14 at 23:25
  • I could help if I knew what's required. Biblatex has a natbib emulation mode. Where did you find these files? – Bernard Feb 28 '14 at 23:28
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    just a heads up ... if you are intending to submit what you write to a particular publisher, do check on what that publisher requests. it may be that what you find most convenient is not what the publisher can use, and the reason is not sheer cussedness, but the fact that in order to meet deadlines and produce journals that look consistent, certain procedures have been set up, and it is possible to change those procedures only glacially. sad but true. – barbara beeton Feb 28 '14 at 23:31
  • @andylaw31 -- If you really mean this, "I want to use a special bibliography style called lsalike", which comes with a .bst, you cannot use biblatex until someone translates that style into something biblatex understands. As much as I recommend biblatex generally, you might consider sticking with 'plain' BibTeX as long as you need/want to use that style. – jon Mar 01 '14 at 00:28
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    @andylaw31: this link: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/71567/how-can-i-number-the-references-in-a-bibliography-irrespective-of-their-order-of might be of interest. – Bernard Mar 01 '14 at 03:13
  • @barbarabeeton Not intending to submit, just following their conventions with regards to the bibliography. – yndajas Mar 01 '14 at 11:05
  • @jon Thanks - that clarifies things! – yndajas Mar 01 '14 at 11:06
  • @Bernard Thanks! Looks like they have given an example of how you would use lsalike. Just need to know where to store it now I think. – yndajas Mar 01 '14 at 11:06
  • They must be in a LocalTeXMF directory (if you use TeXLive, it already exists – not sure of the exact name; for MiKTeX, you'll have to create one and declare it to MiKTeX Settings as a personal root). The lsa.bst file must go in LocalTeXMF\bibtex\bst\lsa\ and lsa.sty in LocalTeXMF\tex\latex\lsa. Don't forget to run texhash (TeXLive) ot Refresh FNDB (MiKTeX). – Bernard Mar 01 '14 at 11:36
  • I second the recommendation to use biblatex, but be aware that virtually no journals which accept submissions in TeX format use it. They all use BibTeX. – Sverre Apr 30 '14 at 10:21
  • @ Sverre: Is it also a problem if the backend is BibTeX? – Bernard Apr 30 '14 at 11:55