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I've got a little problem with a large Word document and the corresponding bibliography. The bibliography is 'hardcoded' (not my fault...) and I want to port the document to Latex. Downloading the whole references again seems a bit too time consuming to me, so if there isn't an easy way to 'extract' the entries from the Word file into a Bib file I'd just 'hardcode' it in Latex. Assuming that I should go for this way I'd like to know how I can make the bibliography look like as usual. Any suggestions for an efficient solution?

Thanks in advance!

tho_mi
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1 Answers1

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If this is just a one-off exercise you could put the references typed and formatted the way you want them to appear in the note field of bib items. That would mean pasting from word into your favorite reference editor (or a text editor) and adding latex markup for italics, bold or whatever you want.

Example bibliography database (call it example.bib):

@BIBNOTE{note:alien,
  note = {Smith, P \& Benn, J 2012, This is a freeform reference, Panamanian Journal of Toenail Clippings},
}

@BIBNOTE{note:bassnote,
  note = {This is just a note but could be a reference if you like and bits could be \textbf{bold for} example},
}

MWE for using it

\documentclass [12pt]{article}

\usepackage[citestyle=numeric,
    sorting=none] % List citation in order they appear
    {biblatex}

\bibliography{example}

\begin{document}

Beware the Jabberwock my son\cite{note:bassnote}, the jaws that bite\cite{note:bassnote,note:alien}. 

\printbibliography

\end{document}
Aubrey Blumsohn
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  • Sorry for the late reply. Yes, it's just a one-off exercise. Thanks, I will try this approach! – tho_mi Sep 26 '15 at 11:01
  • Ok, I've got a question to this approach. I'd like to cite the following way: "this has been shown by Smith (2012), where he...."

    How can I cite this way using your approach?

     – tho_mi Sep 26 '15 at 11:21
  • If you are doing it manually you are doing it manually. There is no way for the note to tell what is the author, so this would work best for a numeric citing style. – Aubrey Blumsohn Sep 26 '15 at 12:53
  • Ok. Fortunately I don't need to cite "correctly", so it's not a problem in this case. Thanks! – tho_mi Sep 29 '15 at 14:51
  • I think there's an easier way. I just need the entries, without citations, so it should be sufficient to get the entries from Word to Latex, format them the right way and put them into a separate chapter at the end. – tho_mi Sep 29 '15 at 14:58
  • @tho_mi: If you really only need the bibliography, you could always copy-paste it to a LaTeX document and enclose it in a description list: \begin{description} \item[] first reference \item[] second reference ... \end{description} – HATEthePLOT Feb 15 '16 at 23:26
  • Sorry for not having replied! I wanted to 'convert' the thesis of a friend from Word to Latex, but then she decided to stick with the Word-version, hence the problem 'disappeared'!

    Thanks for all the hints :)

     – tho_mi Feb 18 '16 at 12:48