The use of the achemso package is recommended when using the achemso bibliography style as it provides a convenient interface to alter the control values used by the style. However, it's perfectly possible to use the bibliography style without the package. To do that, the key thing to bear in mind is that it's a numbered natbib style, and so you should be loading the natbib package with the numbers option
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@ARTICLE{Abernethy2003,
author = {Colin D. Abernethy and Gareth M. Codd and Mark D. Spicer
and Michelle K. Taylor},
title = {{A} highly stable {N}-heterocyclic carbene complex of
trichloro-oxo-vanadium(\textsc{v}) displaying novel
{C}l---{C}(carbene) bonding interactions},
journal = {{J}. {A}m. {C}hem. {S}oc.},
year = {2003},
volume = {125},
pages = {1128--1129},
number = {5},
doi = {10.1021/ja0276321},
}
\end{filecontents}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[sort&compress,numbers,super]{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{achemso}
\begin{document}
Text\cite{Abernethy2003}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}
If you want to be able to control the output of the bibliography, for example setting whether or not article titles are included, then you need to have a special 'control' database entry, and to cite this. That can be achieved in basically the same way the package works:
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@ARTICLE{Abernethy2003,
author = {Colin D. Abernethy and Gareth M. Codd and Mark D. Spicer
and Michelle K. Taylor},
title = {{A} highly stable {N}-heterocyclic carbene complex of
trichloro-oxo-vanadium(\textsc{v}) displaying novel
{C}l---{C}(carbene) bonding interactions},
journal = {{J}. {A}m. {C}hem. {S}oc.},
year = {2003},
volume = {125},
pages = {1128--1129},
number = {5},
doi = {10.1021/ja0276321},
}
\end{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname-control.bib}
@Control{achemso-control,
ctrl-article-title = "no",
ctrl-chapter-title = "no",
ctrl-etal-number = "15",
ctrl-etal-firstonly = "yes",
}
\end{filecontents}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[sort&compress,numbers,super]{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{achemso}
\AtBeginDocument{\nocite{achemso-control}}
\begin{document}
Text\cite{Abernethy2003}
\bibliography{\jobname,\jobname-control}
\end{document}
or of course you can add the control entry to your main .bib file. Hopefully the control entries are clear enough.
@controlfacilities it is really helpful. I read the sentence you copy from the manual (your manual ;) ) but I have to say that these examples are really clearer. I just have this warning :Package natbib Warning: Citation 'achemso-control' undefined on input line. Why do you add this line in the source ?\AtBeginDocument{\nocite{achemso-control}}. – Ger Aug 29 '12 at 09:15\AtBeginDocumentas citations are written to the.auxfile, and that is cleared at the start of the document. You could just add\nocite{achemso-control}after\begin{document}, but as it's not really part of the document I think it's 'better style' to set this in the preamble. – Joseph Wright Aug 29 '12 at 09:22