bibtex - make a bibliography for (La)TeX
Contents
Description
This manual page is not meant to be exhaustive. The complete documentation for this version of TeX can
be found in the info file or manual Web2C:ATeXimplementation.
BibTeX reads the top-level auxiliary (.aux) file auxname that was output during the running of latex(1)
or tex(1) and creates a bibliography (.bbl) file that will be incorporated into the document on
subsequent runs of LaTeX or TeX.
BibTeX looks up, in bibliographic database (.bib) files specified by the \bibliography command, the
entries specified by the \cite and \nocite commands in the LaTeX or TeX source file. It formats the
information from those entries according to instructions in a bibliography style (.bst) file (specified
by the \bibliographystyle command), and it outputs the results to the .bbl file.
The LaTeX manual explains what a LaTeX source file must contain to work with BibTeX. Appendix B of the
manual describes the format of the .bib files. The `BibTeXing' document describes extensions and details
of this format, and it gives other useful hints for using BibTeX.
Environment
BibTeX searches the directories in the path defined by the BSTINPUTS environment variable for .bst files.
If BSTINPUTS is not set, it uses the system default. For .bib files, it uses the BIBINPUTS environment
variable if that is set, otherwise the default. See tex(1) for the details of the searching.
If the environment variable TEXMFOUTPUT is set, BibTeX attempts to put its output files in it, if they
cannot be put in the current directory. Again, see tex(1). No special searching is done for the .aux
file.
Files
*.bst Bibliography style files.
btxdoc.tex
``BibTeXing'' - LaTeXable documentation for general BibTeX users
btxhak.tex
``Designing BibTeX Styles'' - LaTeXable documentation for style designers
btxdoc.bib
database file for those two documents
xampl.bib
database file giving examples of all standard entry types
btxbst.doc
template file and documentation for the standard styles
All those files should be available somewhere on your system.
The host math.utah.edu has a vast collection of .bib files available for anonymous ftp, including
references for all the standard TeX books and a complete bibliography for TUGboat.
Name
bibtex - make a bibliography for (La)TeX
Options
The -min-crossrefs option defines the minimum number of crossref required for automatic inclusion of the
crossref base entry in the citation list; the default is two. To avoid these automatic inclusions
altogether, give this option a sufficiently large number, and be sure to remove any previous .aux and
.bbl files. Otherwise the option may appear to have no effect, since BibTeX will have added the citation
for the base entry to the .aux file, and nothing will remove it.
With the -terse option, BibTeX operates silently. Without it, a banner and progress reports are printed
on stdout.
See Also
latex(1), tex(1). Leslie Lamport, LaTeX-ADocumentPreparationSystem, Addison-Wesley, 1985, ISBN 0-201-15790-X.
Synopsis
bibtex [-min-crossrefs=number] [-terse] auxname[.aux]
