Multiplatform, free, and powerful. I could be using these terms to describe Mendeley Desktop, but what I’m going to write in this blog post is about something else, something called LaTeX and BibTeX. For those of you that are unfamiliar with LaTeX, it’s:
Word processor integration Some reference management software include support for automatic embedding and (re)formatting of references in word processing programs. This table lists this type of support for Microsoft Word, Pages, Apache OpenOffice / LibreOffice Writer, the LaTeX editors Kile and LyX, and Google Docs. To inform BibTeX that it's not dealing with authors (or editors.) with one first name, one middle name (De, Van, Scott, Bonham, etc), and one surname and, instead, with authors/editors that all have one first name and a two-word surname, the names should be entered into the author and editor fields either as (using commas). Where “tfv” is replaced by the name of the prefix of file name with the extension.bst and /path/to/bibtex/file.bib is the actual path to your BibTex file, obviously. For example, in my case, there is a file called tfv.bst in the journal’s unzipped template which contains code to generate the bibliography based on your BibTex file, so I. If you use a different editor, it can be necessary to execute the bibtex command manually. In a command prompt/shell simply run: pdflatex lesson7a1.tex bibtex lesson7a1 pdflatex lesson7a1.tex pdflatex lesson7a1.tex. It is necessary to execute the pdflatex command, before the bibtex command, to tell bibtex what literature we cited in our paper. Scientific Word and Scientific WorkPlace support the use of BibTeX for generating the bibliography of your document. However, you must have a BibTeX database of your references. You can generate a BibTeX database with the free MS-DOS based software called BibDB that we have included in SW.
a high-quality typesetting system; it includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation.
And now let me introduce you to BibTeX too:
a tool and a file format which are used to describe and process lists of references, mostly in conjunction with LaTeX documents.
Ok, so we’re now acquainted with LaTeX and BibTeX. Let’s see how we can use these tools along with Mendeley Desktop to get you citing and writing your manuscript.
BibTeX preferences
Go to Mendeley Desktop preferences, select the BibTeX tab. Once there, tick the box labeled “Enable BibTeX syncing” and select one of the options you prefer. I chose the middle one, “Create one BibTeX file per collection”. This generates one .bib file for each folder you create in Mendeley Desktop.
Autogenerate .bib file(s)
The next step is to create a folder where you will store all the articles or references pertaining to your manuscript. This will generate a .bib folder as per your settings in the preference menu.
Any articles or references added to a given folder are automatically synchronized and changes reflected in the .bib file with the same name as the folders you created. In my example, I have a folder I labeled “Bioinformatics”, therefore Mendeley Desktop automatically generates a Bioinformatics.bib file with all the document details for the references within that folder.
Citing in LaTeX
Here’s where the cool (and the only complicated) part is: writing your article using LaTeX syntax. There are great resources online to learn LaTeX, such as this one. However, what I really wanted to show you is how to add citations using LaTeX and your automatically generated BibTeX file (.bib).
In the following image, you can see an example LaTeX file (.tex) where I’ve added some dummy text, and in the middle you will see two citations from my .bib file.
Generate your PDF
These citations are all I need so that LaTeX can generate a formatted PDF document with the appropriate citations and the corresponding reference list at the end of the document. Take a look at what the final product looks like below.
As a finishing note, I’d just like to mention that I’m quite a novice with LaTeX. This seems like a fantastically useful tool so far and I’m looking forward to improving my LaTeX writing and formatting skills. The Mendeley developers are always looking to improve these features, so we’d like to read about your experience and suggestions for improvements.
Document 51
What is BibTeX?
Version: 2.5 - Scientific WorkPlace & Scientific Word
Q. What is BibTeX?
A. BibTeX, free software tool of the LaTeX Project, generates a list of references from a bibliographic database.
Most publishers and publishing organizations give their editors a documentation style recommendation. This recommendation includes definitions for the style of the citations and the list of references. The idea of BibTeX is that an entry in the bibliographic database can be used with any documentation style recommendation. BibTeX realizes this concept by using a BibTeX style file and BibTeX databases.
A bibliographic database for BibTeX provides different types of sources such as article, book, inbook, inproceeding, etc. Each of these entry types consists of fields such as title, author, year, etc. The BibTeX style defines the order of cited sources, how a field of a database entry is formatted, and whether citations in the printed text are shown in a numerical or author-year format.
Scientific Word and Scientific WorkPlace support the use of BibTeX for generating the bibliography of your document. However, you must have a BibTeX database of your references. You can generate a BibTeX database with the free MS-DOS based software called BibDB that we have included in SW. Once you have generated a BibTeX database of your sources, you can use the BibTeX option in SW.
To generate a BibTeX bibliography with SW version 2.5:
Switch on the BibTeX option:
From the File menu, choose Document Info.
Select the Bib Choice tab sheet.
Choose BibTeX.
Choose OK.
Choose the BibTeX database and the BibTeX style you want to use:
From the Insert menu, choose Field and then choose Bibliography.
Make sure that your database is in the same directory as shown.
Select your database and the style you prefer.
Choose OK.
You can use a different directory for BibTeX files. Also, although Scientific Word lists only the default BibTeX styles delivered with the BibTeX tool, you can add another BibTeX style.
If you want to adapt a BibTeX Style to other language than English, you will, at the very least, have to translate the hard-coded English strings in the BibTeX style files, like 'edition' or 'and' Otherwise, you will have to ask for an appropriate style at your publishing organization, or search for a style at a CTAN site.
Using the BibTeX option affects the generation of your document in several ways: The BibTeX program reads the .aux file, which is generated by a LaTeX compiler (such as the TrueTeX compiler included in our package). From this file BibTeX recognizes which sources are cited in your document and chooses only these references for generating your list. Additionally, the .aux file informs BibTeX about the style you have chosen for the bibliography. BibTeX generates the .bbl file from this information. The LaTeX compiler adds the bibliography from this file to your document.
You can obtain further information about BibTeX from these sources:
Bibtex Word Mac
the BibTeX help system at the CTAN site
BibTeX: swpbibtexbtxdoc.tex
BibDB: swpbibtexbibdb.tex
What Is Bibtex File
or from one of several available LaTeX references.
Added 06/26/96
Bibtex And Words
Bibtex Download Windows
This document was created with Scientific WorkPlace.