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LaTeX & BibTeX
This guide provides resources/tips for using LaTeX & BibTeX commands. While this Libguide is intended for any users, we can’t assist non-members of UTSA with any specific questions about using BibTeX and LaTex software programs or coding.
Research Librarian
Charles Wu
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University of Texas at San Antonio
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LaTeX: What, Where, How & Why
- What: LaTeX is a software system for document preparation, especially used as an editor for scientific documents while it makes easy to typeset complex mathematical formulas.
- Where: There are many LaTeX editors freely available on the internet, one of which, Overleaf (used to be called ShareLaTex), is a widely used because it is a collaborative cloud-based version.
- How: You type the content (with LaTex commands) into a LaTeX editor's document - any document created by LaTex editor ending with file extension .tex - then LaTex system can compile the source code in the .tex document, and finally generate a PDF file. In a sense of its finished product, the LaTex system is acting like MS-Word, yet in need of LaTex commands/coding.
- Why with BibTeX (file extension .bib): Within a LaTeX .tex document, through the use of a package called BibTex, you can automatically generate and format a bibliography (the reference list) in the chosen bibliography style, with corresponding in-text citations.
BibTex: What, Where, & How
- What: BibTeX stands for a file format - with file extension of .bib - that contains input data, structured, bibliographic input data, or a list of your references, with each of reference entries in the bib file coming from different sources you have used at different time
- Where is .bib file - to be used for your references in Overleaf? You can accumulate, store, export/import them as follows:
- Stored in one place - in Reference Management Software Program or website, such as EndNote, Zotero, and even Google Scholar's My library
- Zotero Online > under My Library > Highlight the title(s) - single one or multiple by "ctrl + right click" - you want to export it as .bib file
- click "Up Arrow " (to get and see the pop-up menu) >
- then select "BibLaTex" from the pop-up menu in order to Export >
- now you can open a file ending with .bib in your "Downloads" folder ("Downloads" folder is accesible from your browser, such as Chrome)
- Accumulate one by one or on the fly when you just find them from resources, such as Google Scholar
- Google Scholar > Any search results > click Cite (at the end of any record) > Cite window pop-up > select BibTex at the bottom of pop-up > get the result and copy the whole record, then paste into an existing .bib file as an additional entry (in that same .bib file, that is already existing in a project within Overleaf program)
- From UTSA Libraries databases
- UTSA Library Quick Search > Search Result > "EXPORT BIBITEX" (under "Send to" > click Download button > check the downladed .bib file in your default downlaod folder.
- IEEE Xplore > any search reuslt > immediately below the title > click "CITE This" botton to po-up it > select the 2nd tab "BibTex" > Now you have two options: Copy | Download
- Stored in one place - in Reference Management Software Program or website, such as EndNote, Zotero, and even Google Scholar's My library
- Location of BibTeX - transitory: even stored in EndNote or Zotero, in the end, the .bib file would be uploaded / imported into a LaTeX editor program if you want to cite them in your paper.
- How/Why: as .bib files act as a data source for LaTeX, you can streamline the citation process by coding (using three commands below), automatically creating in-text citations and a complete bibliography.
- Each reference in .bib file is automatically formatted with first line having a "key" (key = unique identifier of a bibliographic entry)
- It is that key - to be used in a .tex file - that allows LaTeX program to identify and retrieve a specific, unique sources in the .bib file, and then generate the result of a list of Works Cited at the end of your paper with the help of interaction of three BibTeX-related Commands:
- \cite{variable-XYZ}
- \bibliography{variable-XYZ} and
- \bibliographystyle{citation_STYLE_name}