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I'm having some problems with MLA style citation with Biblatex. I have tried to implement the example in a newly created document, 

\usepackage[american]{babel}

\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage[style=mla]{biblatex}

\addbibresource{<bibfile.bib>}

and used \autocite{x} and \printbibliography between the \begin{Document} \end{Document}

Found here: http://mirrors.nic.cz/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/biblatex-contrib/biblatex-mla/doc/biblatex-mla.pdf

And I have also copied this example (the correct answer):

How can I create bibliography in MLA format with BibTeX?

But I have got a bunch of errors...

I was able to cite with biblatex APA style with Biber. I am using TeXstudio, but I have also tried running the commands in cmd. (I'm using Windows 10). The default bib tool is configured to Biber. I have TeX Live (2015) on my computer, with full install.

I am getting these errors: https://i.stack.imgur.com/G1ycq.jpg

Thank you for your time, attention, and for your answers in advance.

Community
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Kev0_0in
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    You should do an update. EDIT: Wouldn't help, biblatex-mla hasen't been updated yet. https://github.com/jmclawson/biblatex-mla/issues/14 – Johannes_B Mar 26 '16 at 10:47
  • biblatex-mla has not been updated since 2013, it always had a few rough edges (and the probability of things not working increased with time). The recent biblatex updated to version 3.3 has pretty much broken the style. – moewe Mar 26 '16 at 11:01
  • Thank your for both of the answers. What would be the perfect tool for citation with LaTeX? Because I have been told that it's biblatex with biber. – Kev0_0in Mar 26 '16 at 11:12
  • I would be inclined to say that for my uses at least, biblatex/Biber is the best tool for the job. But what is best very heavily depends on your needs, if you must use MLA style and don't want to roll your own, then a package where a MLA style is readily available to you would be a better fit, I believe. – moewe Mar 26 '16 at 11:29

1 Answers1

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The biblatex-mla styles has not been updated since 2013. In the past the style worked more or less smoothly (ignoring the odd rough edge here and there), but some functions were not set up or implemented leaving you with empty citations in some cases (see URL in footcite mla for example).

The recent changes to biblatex's name format introduced in version 3.3 (see Biblatex 3.3 name formatting) have now made the style pretty much unusable.

You should consider ditching biblatex-mla for a more up-to-date and maintained style. If you absolutely have to use biblatex-mla and don't need biblatex's Biber only features, you can use the BibTeX backend instead of Biber, because the changes to the name format were not applied to the BibTeX backend.

The following MWE thus works

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[style=mla,backend=bibtex]{biblatex}

\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}

\nocite{worman,geer,pines,companion,knuth:ct:a,knuth:ct:b,knuth:ct:c,knuth:ct:d}

\begin{document}
\cite{sigfridsson}
\printbibliography
\end{document}
Community
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moewe
  • 175,683
  • @Kev0_0in Please be aware that this is more of a temporary work-around than a real solution. It is not guaranteed to work with future releases and in fact even with the current releases there might be some unexpected things happening. In the long to medium term the package either needs to be revived and brought up to speed with biblatex or you need to switch to another style. (See also this discussion on comp.text.tex about MLA) – moewe Mar 26 '16 at 11:34
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    There is a patch to the biblatex-mla style here https://github.com/gvdgdo/biblatex-mla (and a pull request to the original version) – Guido Apr 20 '16 at 23:35
  • Thanks for that, Guido. Last semester was a rough one for me, and the breaking-update to Biblatex caught me flat footed! – jmclawson Nov 02 '16 at 03:28