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I'm using Biblatex.

Basically, I "just" need to understand what possibilities for references are there and what to use Overleaf for what. The rest of the text is only context information.

@inproceedings
@inbook
@book
@misc
@article

Context: I use this package:

APA7

\usepackage[style=apa,backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{library.bib}

Also, I use Mendeley. One problem I fixed was that Mendeley uses 'issues', but Overleaf recognizes 'number'. I used a Python script to change 'issues' to 'number' in the document. Now, I need to understand what Mendeley outputs and how Overleaf interprets the references before I can proceed with my writing. Otherwise, I'll have to fix 120-150 references.

Example

 @incollection{Svensson,
   author = {Harald Svensson and Martin Höst},
   doi = {10.1007/11497455_38},
   issn = {03029743},
   journal = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
   pages = {487-501},
   publisher = {Springer Verlag},
   title = {Views from an Organization on How Agile Development Affects Its Collaboration with a Software Development Team},
   volume = {3547},
   url = {http://link.springer.com/10.1007/11497455_38},
   year = {2005},

Now: Now

Should be italic and with page numbers

Should be italic and with page numbers

Mico
  • 506,678
Johannes
  • 11
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  • Welcome to TeX.SE. – Mico Nov 20 '23 at 11:59
  • "Also, I use Mendeley." Ah, you're already in deep, deep trouble. For instance, what on earth is the journal field doing in an entry of type @incollection?! (Hint: @article is the only entry type for which the journal field is meaningful.) Do yourself a big favor and learn to rely less on Mendeley. Instead, for the entry in question, just go to the page https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/11497455_38. From there, click on the "Cite as" link (near the top of the page) and click on the "Bib" link below the "Download citation" header to obtain a reasonable (not perfect) bib entry. – Mico Nov 20 '23 at 12:16
  • That example entry does not look very promising. For a start, an @incollection entry does not have a journal field. That is only for @articles. You can learn about all standard entry types and their fields in the biblatex documentation (http://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/biblatex/doc/biblatex.pdf). biblatex-apa also comes with an extensive example .bib entry that can help clarify finer points (https://github.com/plk/biblatex-apa/blob/master/bibtex/bib/biblatex-apa-test-references.bib). – moewe Nov 20 '23 at 21:07
  • Related: https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/442182/35864, https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/639734/35864, https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/662966/35864. – moewe Nov 20 '23 at 21:08
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    From what I have gathered over the years on this forum and elsewhere is that Mendeley's biblatex export is not particularly good. In some ways it does things that I would say are outright wrong. (I can find five posts alone in which I advise people to complain to the Mendeley developers about the output they got. I'm not particularly hopeful that any of those issues were actually fixed by Mendeley.) If there is any chance you could switch to a different citation manager with better biblatex/BibTeX support, you should definitely consider that. – moewe Nov 20 '23 at 21:12
  • @Firstly, Mico, you're right. I realized last night that the way to go is to visit the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and download it as a BibTeX file. Then, import it into Mendeley and check for issues with the name article, book, or conference paper. If that's what you meant by "learn it," then I'm on the right track. You mentioned that journals are only meaningful for articles. In my example, Springer indicates that it's an and inproceeding also has a journal field. I'll try to learn more about this. If it does happen, what should I consider? – Johannes Nov 21 '23 at 13:23
  • @moewe whater alternavtives you suggest? At the moment im in my beginning so in dont mind to learn change the system – Johannes Nov 21 '23 at 13:27
  • Hi @mico, I understand now! When I get a reference directly from the website, it's labeled as booktitle' but Mendeley changes it to journal I see the issue. So, what's the solution? Should I simply copy-paste everything directly into my 'bib' document, as an example in Overleaf, and and also in mendeley then use Mendeley just for navigation and PDF storage?" – Johannes Nov 21 '23 at 13:36
  • @Johannes - I can only speak for myself: Every time I think it might be worth my time to reacquaint myself with Mendeley, I quickly determine that it is too mistake-ridden to be usable. – Mico Nov 21 '23 at 14:16
  • @mico, well how is you organize yourself than ?^^ im open for new systems – Johannes Nov 21 '23 at 14:37
  • @Johannes - For the past 10 years or so, I've been using WinEdt and its BibMacros package for just about everything related to bibliography management. For me, one of the keys to happiness in this field is to apply rigorous quality control when I first import entries to my main bib files. Are the entry types and all fields correct? Are any fields missing or mislabeled? Are the author and title fields correct? Are there personal names, city and country names, or acronyms that need to be encased in curly braces? Etc... – Mico Nov 21 '23 at 15:08
  • I don't use any reference manager and write my .bib files by hand with my usual editor (Notepad++ or emacs when I feel fancy). If you'd like a little more help, you can look into JabRef. For something that's closer to an actual reference manager, you might want to try Zotero. It's open source, has responsive developers and there is a plugin called Better BibTeX/Better biblatex that lets you customise the .bib export in very fine detail. – moewe Nov 21 '23 at 17:49
  • @mico, unfortunately it's only for windows I use macbook. Basically help me a lot what i will do download bibtex. Open in Visuel Studio, check if author thinks ect and then paste into biblatex. I will also merge into Mendeley, just for organization and PDF saving and to check for citation keys. I will not be exporting from Mendeley. So you have helped me a lot! AND saved me from proofreading hell. – Johannes Nov 21 '23 at 22:53
  • @moewe thank you a lot. Your idea of using Notepad/Emacs is what I find easiest, cleanest, fastest, and safest way to handle references for BibLaTeX. I'm not really sure if I need Zotero if I use Mendeley. Could you please explain to me why I should consider needing Zotero if I do every citation by hand? i dont understand the benefits of biblatex Zotero at the moment. – Johannes Nov 21 '23 at 22:57
  • One more question: Is there a limit for references in BibLaTeX? And does a large number like 200-400 references have a significant impact on the performance/compiling? – Johannes Nov 21 '23 at 23:01
  • The idea would be to use Zotero instead of Mendeley. Reference managers have some features that manually managed .bib files simply don't have (connect PDFs of papers, notes etc. with literature entries ...). If you're fine doing everything by hand, there is no need for Zotero. But if you want a replacement for Mendeley and its advanced non-.bib-exporty features (of which there must be some, because people are using it...), Zotero might be for you (I'm sure it's not exactly the same, but it might be good enough for you..) – moewe Nov 22 '23 at 06:33
  • There is not really a fixed limit in biblatex that restricts how many references you can cite or list in the bibliography. You could run into memory issues with huge files, but that would have to be tens of thousands of entries or even more. 500 references should not be a problem at all. I have seen several hundred pages of references typeset at a reasonable speed. – moewe Nov 22 '23 at 06:36
  • That said, Biber is slower than classical BibTeX, because it can do much more (https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/53247/35864). But you don't have to rerun Biber unless you change something about your citations, so it doesn't necessarily slow down the day-to-day editing of your document too much. – moewe Nov 22 '23 at 06:37
  • First of all, thank you. I'm currently working on my Bachelor's Thesis and want to ensure proper referencing to avoid losing unnecessary points. I'll add and manually check references for completeness. Mendeley will temporarily store my PDFs I'm also considering the performance, particularly regarding Overleaf for my main and packages.tex files, as you mentioned biber. Because it mix format between APA style and classical Thesis with structure Table of content ect. – Johannes Nov 22 '23 at 12:48

0 Answers0