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Context

I use the biblatex package coupled with biber (see terminology disambiguation) for my personal writings.

I want to submit a paper using a template requiring the natbib package — hence the use of bibtex. However, I use biber features in my .bib file (such as crossref) that are not handled by natbib, making the switch not straightforward.

Question

Given the.bib file where all my references are stored, which are all the steps/modifications needed to switch from {biblatex+biber} to {natbib+bibtex}?

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ebosi
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    Partial answer addressing the biber -> bibtex compatibility: Converting from biblatex to BibTeX format using biber – ebosi Mar 11 '16 at 08:29
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    It also depends on the .bst style you use with natbib, some styles support an URL field, some don't. So it can get arbitrarily messy. – moewe Mar 11 '16 at 09:39
  • Is authoryear answering your question? (The class I have to use includes this line: \RequirePackage[authoryear]{natbib}). Within the tex document, the bibliography is called as following: \begin{thebibliography}{9}. – ebosi Mar 11 '16 at 09:47
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    Also related: Compatibility of bibtex and biblatex bibliography files? – ebosi Mar 11 '16 at 09:53
  • Biber can do lots of the dirty work, it can for example convert the date field that .bst styles probably wont understand to year and month. Biblatex: How to convert date field into year and month field?. I can also imagine Biber putting the url and urldate field together in the note field if that be necessary. – moewe Mar 11 '16 at 09:58
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    You seem to have collected quite some info yourself. What would you like an answer to add to that? Do you maybe want to write an answer yourself? – moewe Mar 15 '16 at 08:14
  • I am still looking a 'for dummies' (i.e. step by step) method starting with "I have my .bib file, what do I do now ?". I'll try to write an answer, but need to understand linked threads first (-; – ebosi Mar 16 '16 at 12:37
  • Have you already chosen a bibliography style? If so, which one? Please also tell us if there are entry types and field names in your bib file that are recognized by biblatex/biber (e.g., date) but not by BibTeX. – Mico Mar 16 '16 at 14:46
  • natbib is load with the authoryear option. Is it an answer to your question? (The LaTeX template of the journal is to find here) Regarding incompatible fields/types, I use inbook, urldate, crossref, some alias (e.g. phdthesis) etc. but no exotic custom x-data types. – ebosi Mar 16 '16 at 14:52

2 Answers2

3

Disclaimer: This answer is a work-in-progress, since final solution have not been found yet.

Roadmap overview

  1. Clean-up the biber-specific features of your .bib file using biber-tool

  2. ...

1/ Clean-up the biber-specific features of your .bib file using biber-tool

The .bib file might use biber-specific features (such as the @inbook entry, crossref or urldate fields, etc.). A new .bib file that is BibTeX-compatible must thus be generated. Following answer based on this and this treads.

  • Create a file named myBiberConfig.conf containing following code. It defines how your original .bib file should be transformed in order to be BibTeX-compatible.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<config>
    <output_fieldcase>lower</output_fieldcase>
    <output_resolve>1</output_resolve>
    <output_safechars>1</output_safechars>
    <sourcemap>
        <maps datatype="bibtex" map_overwrite="1">
            <map map_overwrite="1">
                <map_step map_field_source="date" map_match="[0-9]{4}?-([0-9]{2}?)" map_final="1"/>
                <map_step map_field_set="month" map_field_value="$1"/>
            </map>
            <map map_overwrite="1">
                <map_step map_field_source="date" map_match="([0-9]{4}?)" map_final="1"/>
                <map_step map_field_set="year" map_field_value="$1"/>
            </map>
        </maps>
        <maps datatype="bibtex">
            <map>
                <map_step map_type_source="conference" map_type_target="inproceedings"/>
                <map_step map_type_source="electronic" map_type_target="online"/>
                <map_step map_type_source="www" map_type_target="online"/>
            </map>
            <map>
                <map_step map_type_source="mastersthesis" map_type_target="thesis" map_final="1"/>
                <map_step map_field_set="type" map_field_value="mathesis"/>
            </map>
            <map>
                <map_step map_type_source="phdthesis" map_type_target="thesis" map_final="1"/>
                <map_step map_field_set="type" map_field_value="phdthesis"/>
            </map>
            <map>
                <map_step map_type_source="techreport" map_type_target="report" map_final="1"/>
                <map_step map_field_set="type" map_field_value="techreport"/>
            </map>
            <map>
                <map_step map_field_source="address" map_field_target="location"/>
                <map_step map_field_source="school" map_field_target="institution"/>
                <map_step map_field_source="annote" map_field_target="annotation"/>
                <map_step map_field_source="archiveprefix" map_field_target="eprinttype"/>
                <map_step map_field_source="journal" map_field_target="journaltitle"/>
                <map_step map_field_source="primaryclass" map_field_target="eprintclass"/>
                <map_step map_field_source="key" map_field_target="sortkey"/>
                <map_step map_field_source="pdf" map_field_target="file"/>
            </map>
        </maps>
    </sourcemap>
</config>

  • Process your original .bib file with the --tool option of biber

    biber --tool --configfile=myBiberConfig.conf <yourbibfile>.bib

  • Your processed .bib file is the freshly created <yourbibfile>_bibertool.bib

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ebosi
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    Note that one problem with this project is that there is no such thing as BibTeX (or even natbib) compatibility. The fields and entry types that you can use are ultimately decided on by your .bst file, some support a url field, some don't etc. There are some features of biblatex that no .bst style can deal with (as far as I know), the date field being one, advanced crossref being another. – moewe Mar 16 '16 at 15:43
  • Actually, what I want is only to be able to use my .bib database (that is intended for a processing using biber) with the given template (that require natbib package, hence a processing with bibtex. If every feature of biber (e.g. url) are not available, I don't care as long as it is not needed by journal's .bst style. – ebosi Mar 16 '16 at 15:56
  • What I'm saying is that an answer can depend quite heavily on the exact style you use. A problem with unsupported url or date field is that if they are not "recovered" in some way for the .bst to be able to understand them the important information contained there is lost. – moewe Mar 16 '16 at 16:02
  • Got it! The mapping (via the xml code) is thus "style (i.e. .bst) dependent", right ? As no specific information is given in the template, I'll assume the authoryear style is used. – ebosi Mar 16 '16 at 16:11
  • Mhhh, no the necessary mapping will in last detail depend on the .bst you plan to use with BibTeX. It does not depend on the biblatex style used. (authoryear is not a .bst style that I would know) – moewe Mar 16 '16 at 16:14
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To add to the existing answers. For bibtex-2.16 a minimal configuration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Got the date from https://gist.githubusercontent.com/mkouhia/f00fea7fc8d4effd9dfd/raw/500e9dbc6aa43a47e39c45ba230738ff4544709f/biblatex-to-bibtex.conf -->
<config>
  <output_fieldcase>lower</output_fieldcase>
  <output_resolve>1</output_resolve>
  <output_safechars>1</output_safechars>
  <output_format>bibtex</output_format>
  <sourcemap>
    <maps datatype="bibtex">
      <!-- Easy type conversions -->
      <map>
        <map_step map_type_source="report" map_type_target="techreport"/>
        <map_step map_type_source="online" map_type_target="misc"/>
      </map>
      <!-- Date to year, month -->
      <map>
        <map_step map_field_source="date"
        map_field_target="year" />
      </map>
      <map>
        <map_step map_field_source="year"
        map_match="(\d{4}|\d{2})-(\d{1,2})-(\d{1,2})"
        map_final="1" />
        <map_step map_field_source="year"
        map_match="(\d{4}|\d{2})-(\d{1,2})-(\d{1,2})"
        map_replace="$1" />
        <map_step map_field_set="month" map_origfieldval="1" />
        <map_step map_field_source="month"
        map_match="(\d{4}|\d{2})-(\d{1,2})-(\d{1,2})"
        map_replace="$2" />
      </map>
      <map>
        <map_step map_field_source="year"
        map_match="(\d{4}|\d{2})-(\d{1,2})" map_final="1" />
        <map_step map_field_source="year"
        map_match="(\d{4}|\d{2})-(\d{1,2})" map_replace="$1" />
        <map_step map_field_set="month" map_origfieldval="1" />
        <map_step map_field_source="month"
        map_match="(\d{4}|\d{2})-(\d{1,2})" map_replace="$2" />
      </map>
    </maps>
  </sourcemap>
</config>

Coupled with a few command line options:

biber --tool --configfile=biberConf.xml references.bib --output-file refsTmp.bib --output-legacy-date --output-field-replace=location:address,journaltitle:journal

Is sufficient. More details are here. Note that sufficiency in this case is defined as being recognized as valid bibtex by sphinx, and this should not be used without more work for other cases (like journal templates).

HaoZeke
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