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I am using Miktex engine for Linux, which unfortunately does not support biber (for now). For this reason, I have to set backend=bibtex option in biblatex.

So, my question is how can I change citation style (e.g. to author-year) in the following set up? 

\usepackage[
backend=bibtex,
natbib,
style=?
]{biblatex}

`

Yorgos
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  • Did you checked here? https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/35040/where-can-i-find-collections-of-bibliography-styles – koleygr Sep 07 '17 at 22:31
  • the problem is not only which style to choose,but how to set up my preamble... – Yorgos Sep 07 '17 at 22:43
  • \bibliographystyle command does not work since i load biblatex package. i would appreciate if you could provide a mwe – Yorgos Sep 07 '17 at 22:53
  • Ok. Removing my previous comment. I thought it would accept bibliographystyle command. Why you have to use biber and not just bibtex command? Does it have to do with Miktex? – koleygr Sep 07 '17 at 23:01
  • yes exactly...i cannot use biber, since miktex does not support it in the linux version – Yorgos Sep 07 '17 at 23:07
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    Ahnyway... I found that: "Please beware that MiKTeX for Linux is still in an experimental stage"... I think you should have a really important reason to not use texlive or something original about TeX on your linux. And If you can not use biber don't use it... Use bibtex if this software you use have such option. But I would suggest a distro like texlive or anyway something compatible with linux – koleygr Sep 07 '17 at 23:10
  • Have you been taken a look at the manual? authoryear? – Johannes_B Sep 08 '17 at 05:21
  • https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Bibliographies_with_biblatex_and_biber – Johannes_B Sep 08 '17 at 05:22
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    I don't see why you shouldn't be able to use biber. If miktex doesn't provide it get the binary from eg texlive and put it in your path. – Ulrike Fischer Sep 08 '17 at 07:26
  • Or get the binary from here https://sourceforge.net/projects/biblatex-biber/files/biblatex-biber/current/binaries/Linux/. – Ulrike Fischer Sep 08 '17 at 07:38
  • @UlrikeFischer i didn't know that i could do it... – Yorgos Sep 08 '17 at 08:46

1 Answers1

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As confirmed by the MikTeX developer on GitHub a Biber package is not yet available for MikTeX on Linux https://github.com/MiKTeX/miktex-packaging/issues/2

The download page (https://miktex.org/download) states for Linux

Please beware that MiKTeX for Linux is still in an experimental stage.

So if you need a full and stable TeX distribution on Linux for production then you should probably not use MikTeX since it is still experimental. Use the tried and tested TeX live (maybe in vanilla for newest updates - How to install “vanilla” TeXLive on Debian or Ubuntu?) instead. Biber is available there and is kept in sync with biblatex.

If you absolutely must use the experimental MikTeX on Linux and must use Biber, you can get the Binaries from SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/biblatex-biber/files/biblatex-biber/current/binaries/Linux/ Note that you absolutely need to make sure that the versions of biblatex installed via MikTeX and Biber installed manually are compatible. Remember to manually update Biber after each (semi-)automatic update of biblatex.

To answer the question you posted. When you use BibTeX as backend you change your biblatex style exactly the same way you would when you use Biber. (You still can't use .bst styles, since biblatex is incompatible with them. no matter what backend you use.)

So if with Biber you used \usepackage[backend=biber, natbib, style=authoryear]{biblatex}, with BibTeX it is

\usepackage[backend=bibtex, natbib, style=authoryear]{biblatex}

Note that since BibTeX is considered a legacy backend, some features may not be available with BibTeX. The full set of features is only supported by Biber. That is why you should prefer Biber over BibTeX.

moewe
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