Bibliography imported from main and subfiles

biblateximportpackagessubfiles

I have a bib file that I need several subfiles to have access to. Currently the file structure is:

project
   main.tex
   Bib.bib
       Chapters
           Chapter1
               Chapter1.tex

I can run either the main.tex and have the bib display correctly using\addbibresource{Bib.bib} or I can have the subfiles (in this case Chapter1.tex) run correctly by having \addbibresource{../../Bib.bib} in the main.tex file. How can I have both documents run without having to change the code in main.tex each time or without using the full directory?

I understand for images and other documents the correct tool would be the import package described in this question but that doesn't appear to work correctly with biblatex.

Best Answer

If you want to compile your included files also as standalone documents, you need something more than just \input or \include.

One solution that generally works well with biblatex is subfiles, which has the magic command \subfix to fix file path mismatches caused by different working directories.

ST3: no bib files found in a subfile and When using subfiles package, where it the proper location to add the bibliography files? have elaborate examples, so suffice it to say here that it is probably enough to use .bib file names relative to the main .tex document wrapped in \subfix, e.g.

\addbibresource{\subfix{Bib.bib}}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Bibliographies when using subfiles

From subfiles.sty the \subfile command is defined as:

\newcommand\subfile[1]{\begingroup\skip@preamble\input{#1}\endgroup}

So it is straightforward to hook in some code to locally redefine \printbibliography to do nothing. For an example add the following to the preamble of the main file:

\makeatletter

\newrobustcmd*{\nobibliography}{%
  \@ifnextchar[%]
    {\blx@nobibliography}
    {\blx@nobibliography[]}}

\def\blx@nobibliography[#1]{}

\appto{\skip@preamble}{\let\printbibliography\nobibliography}

\makeatother

Note that biblatex makes bibliographic data available via citation commands. So unless you want to view the bibliography entries outside the main file, the subfiles need not invoke \printbibliography.

[Tex/LaTex] Handle .bib in subfiles

For posterity, I was having the same issue - and the answer from 'bibliographies when using subfiles' didn't work for me because I wasn't using biblatex and didn't have the \printbibliography command.

I found a nice, working solution at latex-community.org, slightly modified*:

main.tex:

\documentclass[...]{...}
\usepackage{natbib}
\usepackage{subfiles}
...
\providecommand{\main}{.}  % *Modification: define file location
\def\biblio{\bibliographystyle{plainnat}\bibliography{\main/bibliography_file}}  % *Modification: added `\main/` to specify relative file location.
\begin{document}
\def\biblio{}
...
\subfile{chapter_1}
\subfile{chapter_2}
...
\bibliographystyle{plainnat}
\bibliography{bibliography}
\end{document}

tex/sub.tex:

\providecommand{\main}{..}  % *Modification: redefine path location, must go before \documentclass
\documentclass[main]{subfiles}
\begin{document}
...
\biblio
\end{document}

*Modifications are to let a bibliography file in a different directory than the subfile (sub.tex) work. If your sub.tex file is in the same directory as ms.tex and bibliography_file then you don't need this.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Bibliographies when using subfiles

[Tex/LaTex] Handle .bib in subfiles

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