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Biblatex

<< Tips and Tricks for using Jurabib | Page list | Some workarounds for known bugs >>

What is biblatex?

See this page.

Using biblatex with LyX

LyX doesn't provide native support for biblatex yet. However, it is possible to use it with some effort, as described here. Note that you will need at least version 0.7 of biblatex.

Note that the first step is only necessary if you want to use an author-year style (and thus need the different citations styles that are provided in the citation dialog).

1. Create a version of your LyX layout file with biblatex support (which means: you can use the "styles" in the citation dialog, without loading natbib or jurabib, which would clash with biblatex). This is done as follows:
   • With LyX 1.6.0 and newer:
     • Put the file biblatex.module in the layouts folder in your user directory (Help→About LyX tells you where you can find this directory).
     • Run Tools→Reconfigure, restart LyX and select the module "Biblatex-citation-styles" from Document→Settings→Modules.
   • With older versions of LyX:
     • Create a new layout file in your user directory (Help→About LyX tells you where you can find this directory). Let's say, for example, that you want to use the article class with biblatex. Create a new file "bblarticle.layout" with the following content:

     #% Do not delete the line below; configure depends on this
     #  \DeclareLaTeXClass[article]{article (with biblatex)}
     
     Format 4
     
     # Load the article class
     Input article.layout
     
     # this is biblatex actually
     Provides natbib	1
     

     • Run Edit→Reconfigure, restart LyX and select the class "article (with biblatex)" from Document→Settings→Class.
     • If you use another class than article, replace "article" with the name of your class both in the file name and in the file itself (all occurences).
2. In the document preamble, load biblatex manually. If you want to use an author-year style, you have to use the package option "natbib=true". So, for instance:
   \usepackage[style=authoryear,natbib=true]{biblatex}
   For a numeric or alpha-numeric style, you just need something like:
   \usepackage[style=numeric]{biblatex}
   Please refer to the biblatex documentation for further options.
3. Load your bibliography database in the preamble:
   \bibliography{<name of bib-file without .bib-extension>}
   • Note that the bib file must either be located in your texmf-tree, or you must enter an absolute path in the command above. (Do not forget a "sudo texhash" in the terminal to tell latex where to find the new file in the texmf-tree.)
   • Multiple databases must be separated by commas.
4. In the document, insert the BibTeX inset (Insert→List/TOC→BibTeX Bibliography... ) in a LyX note or comment, such that LyX finds the citations, but no \bibliography command is output to LaTeX. It does not matter which style you chose here, so you can stick with "plain". However, in order to use the citation dialog, you'll have to chose the correct databases (i.e. those you loaded above in item (3)).
5. In the document, enter \printbibliography in ERT at the place where the bibliography shall occur.

Disclaimer: biblatex is still beta, although it works very well. It might happen that some commands change for the stable version, although version 0.7 has been declared "stable".

Using bibtex8 or biber instead of bibtex

The biblatex manual advises to use bibtex8 instead of the traditional bibtex, because the capacities of traditional bibtex are often too small for biblatex, which needs a lot of resources. An even more powerful solution is biber, a modern bibtex replacement package written in Perl and specifically designed for biblatex. Biber has no resource limits at all and it can also deal with unicode. However, biber is still beta software, so use it with care.

To change from bibtex to bibtex8, go to Tools→Settings→Output→LaTeX and change the bibtex command from bibtex to bibtex8 --wolfgang --csfile latin9.csf or something similar. Please refer to the biblatex manual, section 2.4.2 (BibTeX capacity issues) for further explanations on the --wolfgang switch, and to section 2.4.3 (BibTeX sorting and encoding issues) for explanations on the --csfile switch, which need to be adapted to your bib file encoding.

Also note that you will need to pass the option backend=bibtex8 to the \usepackage[...]{biblatex} call if you use bibtex8.

To change from bibtex to biber, go to Tools→Settings→Output→LaTeX and change the bibtex command from bibtex to biber (also input biber options, if you need them). Also note that you will need to pass the option backend=biber to the \usepackage[...]{biblatex} call if you use biber.

biblatex-Style Guide (examples of biblatex default-styles)

biblatex offers a variety of default styles and can replace practically every existing BibTeX-related LaTeX-package. This style guide gives a quick overview over the default styles in biblatex and may help your decision. Beware that there are five general citation styles with several sub-styles that differ only in detail and that would need a longer and more complex example document to show the differences. Therefore, they will be only described shortly.

To choose a style put it into the LaTeX-preamble and the biblatex options:

Note that biblatex offers you to choose different styles for citations and for bibliography. You can load them like this:

I was too lazy to change the references so they are all in German. The text is English. Hope you do not mind. The first item is a book, the second an article (from a journal) and the third an incollection-article.

Note: The following LyX example files use a non-available document class (bblmemoir). To use them, switch the document class to Book (memoir) (or simply article) and use the biblatex.module as explained above.
Also make sure that the BibTeX database is either in your TEXMF tree or that the paths of the \bibliography preamble command are absolute.

Citation style: numeric

• Example document: biblatex_style_guide-numeric.lyx
• Example BibTeX database: biblatex_style_guide.bib
• Preview of the example document (pdf): biblatex_style_guide-numeric.pdf

Writing academic papers sometimes can be quite boring. Thanks to Umberto Eco, there is at least one good book on writing a thesis [1]. Organizing your references with your computer can make life a lot more simple, Markus Krajewski has written about this [2]. And if you decide on writing a paper, then please do not make it too boring, as Michael Stitzel suggests [3]! Now, to read any of these references, you will need to learn German first. . .

References

[1] Umberto Eco. Wie man eine wissenschaftliche Abschlußarbeit schreibt. Doktor-, Diplom- und Magisterarbeit in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Trans. by Walter Schick. 10th ed. Heidelberg: C.F. Müller Verlag, 2003.

[2] Markus Krajewski. “(Un)Tiefen elektronischer Textarchive. Zu Status und Produktionsbedingungen digitaler Literatur”. In: KODIKAS/CODE. Ars Semeiotica 24.3–4 (2001). Pp. 143–148.

[3] Michael Stitzel. “Zur Kunst des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens - bitte mehr Leben und eine Prise Belletristik!”. In: Lust und Last des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens. Hochschullehrerinnen und Hochschullehrer geben Studierenden Tips. Ed. by Wolf-Dieter und Joachim Stary Narr. 1st ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1999. Pp. 140–147.

numeric-comp

This is a compact variant of numeric and prints instead of “[3, 1, 5, 7, 2, 8]” something like “[1-3, 5, 7, 8]” if there are several references directly following each other.

numeric-verb

This is a verbose variant of numeric and prints instead of “[3, 1, 7]” somethinkg like “[3]; [1]; [7]” if there are several references directly following each other.

Citation style: alphabetic

• Example document: biblatex_style_guide-alphabetic.lyx
• Example BibTeX database: biblatex_style_guide.bib
• Preview of the example document (pdf): biblatex_style_guide-alphabetic.pdf

Writing academic papers sometimes can be quite boring. Thanks to Umberto Eco, there is at least one good book on writing a thesis [Eco03]. Organizing your references with your computer can make life a lot more simple, Markus Krajewski has written about this [Kra01]. And if you decide on writing a paper, then please do not make it too boring, as Michael Stitzel suggests [Sti99]! Now, to read any of these references, you will need to learn German first. . .

References

[Eco03] Umberto Eco. Wie man eine wissenschaftliche Abschlußarbeit schreibt. Doktor-, Diplom- und Magisterarbeit in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Trans. by Walter Schick. 10th ed. Heidelberg: C.F. Müller Verlag, 2003.

[Kra01] Markus Krajewski. “(Un)Tiefen elektronischer Textarchive. Zu Status und Produktionsbedingungen digitaler Literatur”. In: KODIKAS/CODE. Ars Semeiotica 24.3–4 (2001). Pp. 143–148.

[Sti99] Michael Stitzel. “Zur Kunst des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens - bitte mehr Leben und eine Prise Belletristik!”. In: Lust und Last des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens. Hochschullehrerinnen und Hochschullehrer geben Studierenden Tips. Ed. by Wolf-Dieter und Joachim Stary Narr. 1st ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1999. Pp. 140–147.

alphabetic-verb

This is a verbose variant of alphabetic and prints instead of “[Eco03; Kra01; Sti99]” somethinkg like “[Eco03]; [Kra01]; [Sti99]” if there are several references directly following each other.

Citation style: authoryear

• Example document: biblatex_style_guide-authoryear.lyx
• Example BibTeX database: biblatex_style_guide.bib
• Preview of the example document (pdf): biblatex_style_guide-authoryear.pdf

Writing academic papers sometimes can be quite boring. Thanks to Umberto Eco, there is at least one good book on writing a thesis (Eco 2003). Organizing your references with your computer can make life a lot more simple, Markus Krajewski has written about this (Krajewski 2001). And if you decide on writing a paper, then please do not make it too boring, as Michael Stitel suggests (Stitzel 1999)! Now, to read any of these references, you will need to learn German first. . .

References

Eco, Umberto (2003). Wie man eine wissenschaftliche Abschlußarbeit schreibt. Doktor-, Diplom- und Magisterarbeit in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Trans. by Walter Schick. 10th ed. Heidelberg: C.F. Müller Verlag.

Krajewski, Markus (2001). “(Un)Tiefen elektronischer Textarchive. Zu Status und Produktionsbedingungen digitaler Literatur”. In: KODIKAS/CODE. Ars Semeiotica 24.3–4. Pp. 143–148.

Stitzel, Michael (1999). “Zur Kunst des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens - bitte mehr Leben und eine Prise Belletristik!”. In: Lust und Last des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens. Hochschullehrerinnen und Hochschullehrer geben Studierenden Tips. Ed. by Wolf-Dieter und Joachim Stary Narr. 1st ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. Pp. 140–147.

authoryear-comp

This is a compact variant of authoryear and prints instead of “Eco 2003b; Eco 1992; Krajewski 2001; Eco 2003a” something like “Eco 1992, 2003a,b; Krajewski 2001”.

Citation style: authortitle

• Example document: biblatex_style_guide-authortitle.lyx
• Example BibTeX database: biblatex_style_guide.bib
• Preview of the example document (pdf): biblatex_style_guide-authortitle.pdf

This style is suited for citing in footnotes. To do so in LyX, put the each citation into a footnote. For compatibility reasons with the wiki, I did not put it in footnotes in the text (but in the example-files, I did). This style can make use of the shorttitle-field (which is new in biblatex).

Writing academic papers sometimes can be quite boring. Thanks to Umberto Eco, there is at least one good book on writing a thesis (Eco, Wissenschaftliche Abschlußarbeit). Organizing your references with your computer can make life a lot more simple, Markus Kra jewski has written about this (Krajewski, “(Un)Tiefen elektronischer Textarchive”). And if you decide on writing a paper, then please do not make it too boring, as Michael Stitel suggests (Stitzel, “Zur Kunst des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens - bitte mehr Leben und eine Prise Belletristik!”)! Now, to read any of these references, you will need to learn German first. . .

References

Eco, Umberto. Wie man eine wissenschaftliche Abschlußarbeit schreibt. Doktor-, Diplom- und Magisterarbeit in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Trans. by Walter Schick. 10th ed. Heidelberg: C.F. Müller Verlag, 2003.

Krajewski, Markus. “(Un)Tiefen elektronischer Textarchive. Zu Status und Produktionsbedingungen digitaler Literatur”. In: KODIKAS/CODE. Ars Semeiotica 24.3–4 (2001). Pp. 143–148.

Stitzel, Michael. “Zur Kunst des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens - bitte mehr Leben und eine Prise Belletristik!”. In: Lust und Last des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens. Hochschullehrerinnen und Hochschullehrer geben Studierenden Tips. Ed. by Wolf-Dieter und Joachim Stary Narr. 1st ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1999. Pp. 140–147.

authortitle-comp

This is a compact variant of authortitle and prints instead of “Eco, First title; Eco, Second title” something like “Eco, First title, Second title”.

authortitle-ibid

This is an ibidem variant of authortitle and replaces immediately repeated citations by “ibidem” unless the citation is the first on on a page or double page spread.

authortitle-icomp

This is a compact and ibidem variant of authortitle and includes features of both variants.

authortitle-terse

This is a terse variant of authortitle and prints the title of an author only if the bibliography contains more than one work by that author.

authortitle-tcomp

This is a compact and terse variant of authortitle and includes features of both variants.

Citation style: verbose

• Example document: biblatex_style_guide-verbose.lyx
• Example BibTeX database: biblatex_style_guide.bib
• Preview of the example document (pdf): biblatex_style_guide-verbose.pdf

This style is suited for citing in footnotes. To do so in LyX, put the each citation into a footnote. For compatibility reasons with the wiki, I did not put it in footnotes in the text (but in the example-files, I did). This style can make use of the shorttitle-field (which is new in biblatex).

Writing academic papers sometimes can be quite boring. Thanks to Umberto Eco, there is at least one good book on writing a thesis (Umberto Eco. Wie man eine wissenschaftliche Abschlußarbeit schreibt. Doktor-, Diplom- und Magisterarbeit in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Trans. by Walter Schick. 10th ed. Heidelberg: C.F. Müller Verlag, 2003). Organizing your references with your computer can make life a lot more simple, Markus Krajewski has written about this (Markus Krajewski. “ (Un)Tiefen elektronischer Textarchive. Zu Status und Produktionsbedingungen digitaler Literatur”. In: KODIKAS/CODE. Ars Semeiotica 24.3–4 (2001). Pp. 143–148). And if you decide on writing a paper, then please do not make it too boring, as Michael Stitel suggests (Michael Stitzel. “Zur Kunst des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens - bitte mehr Leben und eine Prise Belletristik!”. In: Lust und Last des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens. Hochschullehrerinnen und Hochschullehrer geben Studierenden Tips. Ed. by Wolf-Dieter und Joachim Stary Narr. 1st ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1999. Pp. 140–147)! Now, to read any of these references, you will need to learn German first. . .

References

Eco, Umberto. Wie man eine wissenschaftliche Abschlußarbeit schreibt. Doktor-, Diplom- und Magisterarbeit in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Trans. by Walter Schick. 10th ed. Heidelberg: C.F. Müller Verlag, 2003.

Krajewski, Markus. “(Un)Tiefen elektronischer Textarchive. Zu Status und Produktionsbedingungen digitaler Literatur”. In: KODIKAS/CODE. Ars Semeiotica 24.3–4 (2001). Pp. 143–148.

Stitzel, Michael. “Zur Kunst des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens - bitte mehr Leben und eine Prise Belletristik!”. In: Lust und Last des wissenschaftlichen Schreibens. Hochschullehrerinnen und Hochschullehrer geben Studierenden Tips. Ed. by Wolf-Dieter und Joachim Stary Narr. 1st ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1999. Pp. 140–147.

verbose-ibid

This is an ibidem variant of verbose and replaces immediately repeated citations by “ibidem” unless the citation is the first on on a page or double page spread.

verbose-note

This is a note variant of the verbose style and prints a full citation the first time an author is cited and prints a short citation afterwards and points to the footnote with the full citation.

verbose-inote

This is an ibidem and note variant of the verbose style and includes features of both variants.

verbose-trad1

This is a trad1 variant of verbose and uses a traditional citation scheme. It prints a full citation the first time and a short citation afterwards and uses even more (scholarly) abbreviations “ibidem”, “idem”, “op. cit.” and “loc. cit.”. Apart from that, it can make use of the shorthand field (new in biblatex?); shorthands are introduced at the first cite (e.g. Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft, KrV) and used afterwards (e.g. Kant: KrV).

verbose-trad2

This is a trad2 variant of verbose and is similar to verbose-trad1. It uses less scholarly abbreviations and behaves more like verbose-ibid and verbose-inote.

Bibliography Biblatex