Common bib file for several collaborators

Question

I'm currently writing a few papers with several co-authors, and we are all using LaTeX. All of us have access to and use mendeley, so we have the same set of references in our respective local .bib files. Is there any other solutions than changing the path to the .bib file when compiling on our local computers?

I'd be really interested in knowing how you have been dealing with similar problems in the past.

Would you consider this question to be helpful? http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/12363/local-texmf-tree-vs-texinputs — yo', Mar 23 '12 at 15:18

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 23 '12 at 15:46

Arne Henningsen's Tools for Collaborative Writing of Scientiﬁc LaTeX Documents mentions one option: put a copy of the common bib file in each user's texmf tree. I'm starting to do that with my upcoming research, and it works fine so far.

On Windows with TeX Live, make a texmf\bibtex\bib directory under the user's profile directory (C:\Users\username by default on Windows Vista and higher).
Place the .bib file in that folder.
Place any custom bibliography styles in a texmf\bibtex\bst directory under the user's profile directory.
Pull up a command prompt, and run mktexlsr texmf from the profile directory (I don't remember if TeX Live automatically has this in the path or not, so you may need to run it as C:\texlive\2011\bin\win32\mktexlsr texmf or similar instead).
Write your documents wherever, and use the regular \bibliography and related commands as usual. No need for paths, since your personal texmf tree will automatically be searched for support files.

Thanks! The linked paper is especially useful, though I tend to use Git rather then SVN. — Timothée Poisot, Mar 23 '12 at 20:03
@TimothéePoisot This answer is good. If your group is using biber, you also have the option of sharing a remote bib file. — Audrey, Mar 30 '12 at 15:24

Common bib file for several collaborators

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