[Tex/LaTex] Biblatex mla – no bibliography, no references, no nothing

bibdeskbiberbiblatexmla-style

I'm relatively new to the world of LaTeX, but so far I managed to put together a nice looking layout by browsing through StackExchange and reading manuals. Now I've been trying for 3 days to get things working. It's time to ask the pro's.

I've prepared a minimal example because I can't get biber and biblatex working. I get 12 warnings in my log when compiling my PDF.

All because of my cites and footnotes don't translate well. I boils done to a undefined control sequence problem: \citet and \citep don't get me anywhere with biblatex. This (full log here):

LaTeX Warning: Citation 'McGrane:2014' on page 1 undefined on input line 68.

Package biblatex Warning: '\textcite' not defined by citation style.
(biblatex)                Falling back to '\cite' on input line 68.

LaTeX Warning: Empty bibliography on input line 92.

LaTeX Warning: There were undefined references.

Package biblatex Warning: Please (re)run Biber on the file:
(biblatex)                min-biblatex
(biblatex)                and rerun LaTeX afterwards.

Of course my references don't get converted they look like the cite-key from BibDesk (Basich:2003) and… my bibliography doesn't get printed, too :/

Aside from using Sublime Text for building the PDF I also tried the commandline with pdflatex min-biblatex, biber min-biblatex, pdflatex min-biblatex, pdflatex min-biblatex and as last resort TeXShop, too.

(Almost)MWE

\documentclass[12pt,parskip=half-,a4paper,twoside=false,bibliography=totocnumbered,version=first,listof=numbered,numbers=noenddot,version=first]{scrreprt}
\usepackage{ifpdf}
\ifpdf
% ENCODING & TRANSLATION
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\inputencoding{utf8}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
% BIBLIOGRAPHY & CITATION
\usepackage{hyperref}
%   ::BIBLIOGRAPHY::
\usepackage[natbib=true,
            backref=true,
            hyperref=true,
            showmedium=false,
            % autocite=footnote,
            % firstinits=true,
            % indexing=true,
            url=true,           %
            style=mla,          %  style=debug, alphabetic
            backend=biber,      %
            % doi=false,
            texencoding=utf8,
            bibencoding=utf8]{biblatex}

\listfiles
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{literature.bib}
%% This BibTeX bibliography file was created using BibDesk.
%% Saved with string encoding Unicode (UTF-8)
@webpage{McGrane:2014,
    Author = {Sally McGrane},
    Day = {17},
    Lastchecked = {2014-03-23},
    Month = {February},
    Note = {Last checked: 2014-03-23},
    Publisher = {The New Yorker},
    Title = {To the Magic Mountain!},
    Url = {http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/to-the-magic-mountain},
    Year = {2014}}

@webpage{ThomasMannArchiv,
    Lastchecked = {2014-06-18},
    Publisher = {Thomas-Mann-Archiv},
    Title = {Das Internationale Sanatorium »Berghof«},
    Url = {http://www.tma.ethz.ch/assets/Uploads/Ueber-uns/Thomas-Sprecher/Dokumente/4.-Das-Internationale-Sanatorium-Berghof.pdf}}

@book{Mann:1924,
    Address = {Frankfurt am Main},
    Author = {Thomas Mann},
    Edition = {Gro{\ss}e kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe, Band 5.1},
    Editor = {Michael Neumann},
    Publisher = {S. Fischer},
    Title = {Der Zauberberg},
    Year = {2010}}

\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{literature.bib}

\begin{document}
\chapter{Cites and Footnotes}
\label{citesandfootnotes}

Footnote 1\footnote{~\citep{Anderson:1999}} and 2\footnote{~\citep[S. 23f]{Monagas:2007}}. Inline cites [e.g.][p. 2]~\citep{Sprecher:2002} and ~\citep[p 66f]{Basich:2003}. Three cites: author v1~\citep{McGrane:2014}, v2 \citet{Mann:1924} and a quote from  \citet{ThomasMannArchiv}:

\begin{quote}

This is a quote.
\end{quote}

\section{Pics and Tables}
\label{picsandtables}

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\caption{A diagram}
\label{dia1}
\end{figure}

\begin{figure}[htbp]
\caption{A table}
\label{table_tab}
\end{figure}

%end of text
\pagebreak
\appendix
\begingroup
\printbibliography
\listoffigures
\endgroup
\end{document}

I also cleaned the cache via rm -rf `biber --cache since I read that biber is prone to malfunction because of it.

Setup

I use BibDesk to manage my references.
I have the latest MacTeX bundle installed (TeXShop, TeXworks, biber, etc.) which leaves me at biber 1.8 with the fitting biblatex package.
I write in MultiMarkdown and let Scrivener convert my text to LaTeX. This also means that my LaTeX content will always look like what you see after \begin{document}.
I compile with Sublime Text 3 and the LaTeX-Plus package (which uses latexmk). Sometimes I also use TeXShop.

Before biblatex there was natbib

I used to use natbib where everything almost worked, too. Despite these five issues:

No support for [e.g.][p. 333]~\citep{author-key}
Can't get lastchecked (aka date accessed) field from BibDesk to show up in the bibliography. Dissatisfying workaround: use the note field in BibDesk.
Inline cites still show up in apacite format (author, year, page) instead of mla format (author, page)
Doesn't replace unknown author (aka with no author field) in inline citation with something useful.
natbib => not ideal for humanities

apacite style worked pretty well, but I needed mla – that's how I end up giving biblatex a shot.

For reference purposes the mla minimal example:

Stuff I came across that didn't help me:

citing – Biblatex-nature \textcite with superscript reference number – LaTeX Stack Exchange
- This feels close but I don't really know if converting all entries to something biblatex/biber (?) understands is the solution or if there's an easier way out.
miktex – Biblatex, Biber pdflatex: undefined references – LaTeX Stack Exchange
Biblatex: \textcite style in footnotes – LaTeX Stack Exchange

Best Answer

As Bernard says, it works except for the bits which don't work due to non-existent types, unrecognised fields or missing bibliography entries.

Rather than webpage, you may want online. Rather than lastchecked, you probably want urldate:

\documentclass[12pt,parskip=half-,a4paper,twoside=false,bibliography=totocnumbered,version=first,listof=numbered,numbers=noenddot,version=first]{scrreprt}
\usepackage{ifpdf}
\ifpdf
% ENCODING & TRANSLATION
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\inputencoding{utf8}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
% BIBLIOGRAPHY & CITATION
\usepackage{hyperref}
%   ::BIBLIOGRAPHY::
\usepackage[natbib=true,
            backref=true,
            hyperref=true,
            showmedium=false,
            % autocite=footnote,
            % firstinits=true,
            % indexing=true,
            url=true,           %
            style=mla,          %  style=debug, alphabetic
            backend=biber,      %
            % doi=false,
            texencoding=utf8,
            bibencoding=utf8]{biblatex}

\listfiles
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{literature.bib}
%% This BibTeX bibliography file was created using BibDesk.
%% Saved with string encoding Unicode (UTF-8)
@online{McGrane:2014,
    Author = {Sally McGrane},
    Day = {17},
    urldate = {2014-03-23},
    Month = {February},
    Publisher = {The New Yorker},
    Title = {To the Magic Mountain!},
    Url = {http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/to-the-magic-mountain},
    Year = {2014}}

@online{ThomasMannArchiv,
    urldate = {2014-06-18},
    Publisher = {Thomas-Mann-Archiv},
    Title = {Das Internationale Sanatorium »Berghof«},
    Url = {http://www.tma.ethz.ch/assets/Uploads/Ueber-uns/Thomas-Sprecher/Dokumente/4.-Das-Internationale-Sanatorium-Berghof.pdf}}

@book{Mann:1924,
    Address = {Frankfurt am Main},
    Author = {Thomas Mann},
    Edition = {Gro{\ss}e kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe, Band 5.1},
    Editor = {Michael Neumann},
    Publisher = {S.\ Fischer},
    Title = {Der Zauberberg},
    Year = {2010}}

\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{literature.bib}

\begin{document}
\chapter{Cites and Footnotes}
\label{citesandfootnotes}

Footnote 1\footnote{~\citep{Anderson:1999}} and 2\footnote{~\citep[S. 23f]{Monagas:2007}}. Inline cites [e.g.][p. 2]~\citep{Sprecher:2002} and ~\citep[p 66f]{Basich:2003}. Three cites: author v1~\citep{McGrane:2014}, v2 \citet{Mann:1924} and a quote from  \citet{ThomasMannArchiv}:


\printbibliography

\end{document}

Partially complete bibliography and citations

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] biblatex messing up citation entry with lots of authors

This problem is due to biblatex-apa's (apa.bbx's) apaauthor name format; you might want to notify the author of this small bug.

The string and others in the author list sets ifmorenames to true. apaauthor checks for this case whenever a name is printed, not just at the very end of the list; consequently it prints the andothers string ("et al.") after each name.

The fix is to add the following lines to your preamble.

\DeclareNameFormat{apaauthor}{%
  \ifthenelse{\value{listcount}=\maxprtauth\AND\value{listcount}<\value{listtotal}}
    {\addcomma\addspace\ldots\addspace}
    {\ifthenelse{\value{listcount}>\maxprtauth\AND\value{listcount}<\value{listtotal}}
      {}
      {\ifthenelse{\iffieldequalstr{doubtfulauthor}{true}}
        {\mkbibbrackets{\usebibmacro{name:apa:last-first}{#1}{#3}{#4}{#5}{#7}?}}
        {\usebibmacro{name:apa:last-first}{#1}{#3}{#4}{#5}{#7}}}}%
  \ifthenelse{\value{listcount}=\value{listtotal}}% this test is new
    {\ifmorenames{\andothersdelim\bibstring{andothers}}{}}{}}

The MWE

\RequirePackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@Article{boker2011,
Author = {Boker, S. and Neale, M. and Maes, H. and Wilde, M. and
Spiegel, M. and Brick, T. and Spies, J. and Estabrook,
R. and Kenny, S. and Bates, T. and others},
Title = {Open{M}x: {A}n open source extended structural
equation modeling framework},
Journal = {Psychometrika},
Volume = {76},
Number = {2},
Pages = {306--317},
year = 2011
}


\documentclass{apa6}
\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=apa,maxnames=999,sortcites=true,sorting=nyt,apabackref=true,backend=biber]{biblatex}
\DeclareLanguageMapping{american}{american-apa}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}

\DeclareNameFormat{apaauthor}{%
  \ifthenelse{\value{listcount}=\maxprtauth\AND\value{listcount}<\value{listtotal}}
    {\addcomma\addspace\ldots\addspace}
    {\ifthenelse{\value{listcount}>\maxprtauth\AND\value{listcount}<\value{listtotal}}
      {}
      {\ifthenelse{\iffieldequalstr{doubtfulauthor}{true}}
        {\mkbibbrackets{\usebibmacro{name:apa:last-first}{#1}{#3}{#4}{#5}{#7}?}}
        {\usebibmacro{name:apa:last-first}{#1}{#3}{#4}{#5}{#7}}}}%
  \ifthenelse{\value{listcount}=\value{listtotal}}
    {\ifmorenames{\andothersdelim\bibstring{andothers}}{}}{}}

\shorttitle{IFA}

\begin{document}

OpenMx \parencite{boker2011,aksin,wilde,murray}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

then yields

enter image description here

Update 2013-10: This has been corrected in biblatex-apa version 6.4 according to a comment below the question from user PLK.

[Tex/LaTex] Citing (author, journalabbr., year) needed

First thing to do is to add a field for the journal abbreviation to the article entrytype, journalabbr in the MWE. Therefore you need to declare a datamodel (an extra file; in the MWE I've used filecontents to simulate that) and you have to tell biblatex/biber to use it in the package options.

Then you have to modify the cite command, so it fits your needs. \citep from the authoryear-style (your citestyle) uses the \cite command. There you just have to add a switch, which checks if the field journalabbr is empty or not, and prints it out or not.

Last but not least you have to add the abbreviation fields to the entries.

MWE:

\begin{filecontents}{min.bib}
@article{boisson2003unexpected,
  title={Unexpected protein families including cell defense components feature in the N-myristoylome of a higher eukaryote},
  author={Boisson, B. and Giglione, Carmela and Meinnel, Thierry},
  journal={Journal of Biological Chemistry},
  journalabbr={JBC},
  year={2003},
  publisher={ASBMB}
}
\end{filecontents}

\begin{filecontents}{authorjabbryear.dbx}
\ProvidesFile{authorjabbryear.dbx}
\DeclareDatamodelFields[type=field,datatype=literal]{journalabbr}
\DeclareDatamodelEntryfields[article]{journalabbr}
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass[fontsize=11pt, paper=a4, ngerman, DIV=calc]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[scaled]{helvet}
\renewcommand*\familydefault{\sfdefault}
\usepackage{fixltx2e}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage[german=quotes]{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=authoryear-comp,sortcites=true,sorting=nyt,isbn=false,natbib=true, citestyle=authoryear,bibstyle=authoryear,backend=biber,maxnames=1,maxcitenames=1,
,datamodel=authorjabbryear%added!
] {biblatex}

\DefineBibliographyStrings{ngerman}{ andothers = {{et\,al\adddot}} }

\renewbibmacro*{cite}{%from authoryear.cbx
  \iffieldundef{shorthand}
    {\ifthenelse{\ifnameundef{labelname}\OR\iffieldundef{labelyear}}
       {\usebibmacro{cite:label}%
        \setunit{\addspace}}
       {\printnames{labelname}%
        \setunit{\nameyeardelim}}%
     \iffieldundef{journalabbr}{}{%
        \printfield{journalabbr}%
        \setunit{\nameyeardelim}%
        }%
     \usebibmacro{cite:labelyear+extrayear}}
    {\usebibmacro{cite:shorthand}}}

\addbibresource{min.bib}

\begin{document}

\citep{boisson2003unexpected} 

How it should look like: 

(Boisson et al., JBC, 2003)

\printbibliography

\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] biblatex messing up citation entry with lots of authors

[Tex/LaTex] Citing (author, journalabbr., year) needed

Related Question