Underscore in bibtex url

Question

I'm trying to include a link to some code on OneDrive; the link includes an underscore, which is causing a lot of trouble.

I tried adding the entry like this:

@misc{code,
    title = {Code},
    url = {https://1drv.ms/link_link}
}

I use \usepackage{url} and \bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}. Everything compiles fine and the bibliography shows the correct entry. However, if you click the link, it opens a page at https://1drv.ms/link - so ignoring the underscore and everything after it, which leads to a wrong page. Even copy and paste from the PDF doesn't work since the underscore is copied as space, which again is a broken link.

How can I add the link such that it can be clicked and copied properly? I tried \_, \usepackage{underscore}, {{link}}, different bibtex entries but nothing worked. Also all the related questions/answers don't answer mine.

You need hyperref to get correct links. And if you are not using biblatex, then you will have to add the \url command to the bib. — Ulrike Fischer, Jul 28 '17 at 11:42
\usepackage{hyperref} fixed it! However, I did not need \url even using bibtex; it seems like the url field in misc directly expects a URL. — stefanbschneider, Jul 28 '17 at 12:11
It depends on the style. It could be that you have one that add the \url command. — Ulrike Fischer, Jul 28 '17 at 12:17
Without a minimal example it is difficult to say, but I would guess that you are missing \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}. — Ulrike Fischer, Jul 28 '17 at 12:26
For more details of the above discussions one may refer to the following site http://www.tex.ac.uk/FAQ-citeURL.html — venrey, Dec 20 '17 at 05:45
related question: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/71215/missing-inserted-issue That question doesn't have the hyperref/fontenc answer yet, so I will go and add it. — craq, Jul 29 '19 at 21:22

Francesco Boi · Answer 1 · 2019-08-02T09:12:01.053

36

In case of IEEE templates, when using the file bib, replacing the underscore with {\_} should solve the problem. In the case of the question:

@misc{code,
    title = {Code},
    url = {https://1drv.ms/link{\_}link}
}

edited Aug 02 '19 at 09:12

answered Jun 17 '19 at 15:08

Francesco Boi

541

7

Sometimes {\_} is converted by some latex preprocessing so it will not converted properly. In these cases, try just to replace _ by \_ in the bibtex. – Agile Bean Nov 01 '20 at 07:22

score 33 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 09 '23 at 16:21

Just to formally answer and close this question: As Ulrike Fischer answered in the comments, the solution was to use \usepackage{hyperref} (or \usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref} to avoid the ugly boxes) and \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}. This allows properly clicking and copy-&-pasting URLs with underscores.

However, it turned out, using package hyperref wasn't allowed when trying to submit the paper to IEEE. So I ended up simply changing the URL to something without underscore using goo.gl (or bitly since goo.gl is down).

MWE

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
    @misc{code,
        title = {Code},
        url = {https://1drv.ms/link_link}
    }
\end{filecontents}
\begin{document}
\cite{code}
\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

Result

This /has/ to be the hackiest solution ever, and I love it! – inspectorG4dget May 22 '19 at 14:39 — inspectorG4dget, May 22 '19 at 14:39
The bitly hint is amazing. Thanks! – Hannah H. Nov 29 '21 at 21:37 — Hannah H., Nov 29 '21 at 21:37

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 22 '21 at 16:58

5

I do not know why, but the other solutions did not work for me, this did however:

Delete auxiliary files (.bbl)
In the bib file, replace the url by:

url = {{https://doi.org.123345\_6789}}

Note, the double curly braces and non arround \_.

answered Feb 22 '21 at 16:58

Nyps

183

Deleting the .bbl file is always a good idea when you have a problem with the bibliography. But I'm sceptical about the second point. The double braces should normally not be any better than single braces. It will depend on your bibliography style, but usually styles that support a dedicated url field can also interface with the url or hyperref package so that they can deal with unescaped _s when you load \usepackage{hyperref} or \usepackage{url}. If at all possible I'd always prefer url = {https://doi.org.123345_6789} over escaping with backslashes. – moewe Feb 22 '21 at 17:05
Sane story, only this works for me. – Angus Aug 03 '22 at 09:01

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 18 '21 at 10:23

3

I stumbled upon this solution from bibtex.com, which is not covered in other answers:

% if the DOI contains an "_" it must be escaped by "\{_}"
doi = "10.1057/9780230375048\{_}3"

It is for the doi field but maybe it is applicable to others as well.

answered Jun 18 '21 at 10:23

xuiqzy

41

In an another answer that is already written ... – Mensch Jun 18 '21 at 11:07
2

@Mensch I only saw {\_} in another answer and as a tex non-expert, I didn't know this would be transferable in this way and I would also appreciate the explicit mentioning of this slightly different solution, so I posted it. – xuiqzy Jun 18 '21 at 14:00

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 09 '23 at 15:08

I'd recommend using sourcemaps in your Latex-File. That way you don't need to adapt the bib file or anything, For example, to escape an underscore (symbol 5F in unicode), one can use the following:

\DeclareSourcemap{
    \maps[datatype=bibtex, overwrite]{
        \map{
            \step[fieldsource=url, match=\regexp{\x{5F}}, replace=\regexp{\\\x{5F}}]
        }
    }
}

Underscore in bibtex url

5 Answers5

MWE

Result

Linked

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