For a conference I have to put the references in \bibitem
format. After, Googling I came up with this solution by Web page:
Create a
refs.bib
file with all the BibTeX entries, which are easily available from Google Scholar or similarCreate a “dummy”
.tex
file with the following entries:\documentclass{article} \begin{document} \nocite{*} \bibliography{refs} \bibliographystyle{plain} \end{document}
Now, do the following:
$ latex dummy $ bibtex dummy $ bibtex dummy $ latex dummy
You will see a
dummy.bbl
file containing all your BibTeX entries in \bibitem format.
but, the expected results was not observed for me. Any other solution or the problem with the mentioned process.
Best Answer
I agree whith the general process explained in the comments, but i think that they don't fully address the final task that you must do you for the conference, which very likely want a single self contained
.tex
file.Let's assume that you have
mypaper.tex
which is your text with some\cite{<key>}
and arefs.bib
file. Then :Firstly, put in
mypaper.tex
the two lines :\bibliography{refs} \bibliographystyle{plain}
Secondly run (instead of using the
\nocite
which has two drawbacks: (1) ordering as inrefs.bib
and (2) cites refs. that are not\cite
-d in your paper) :(pdf)latex mypaper bibtex mypaper
If this step is successful you will get
mypaper.bbl
containing thebibitem
-s and amypaper.blg
which is BiBTeX's log file. (Nota :latex
reads themypaper.tex
-- and when present themypaper.bbl
file -- butbibtex
reads themypaper.aux
created bylatex
).Thirdly, (optional but recommended) make sure that all the reference are correctly inserted and displayed in the file with :
(pdf)latex mypaper
Fourthly, open
mypaper.tex
, comment out or discard the two\biblio...
lines and paste the whole content ofmypaper.bbl
at the place where you want to get the bibliography. You then have the final self-contained file.You can run
(pdf)latex mypaper
at least two times to get the final.dvi
or.pdf
.Edit: This copy-paste holds if he
.bbl
file content start with the regular\begin{thebibliography}
. If it starts by loading packages with\usepackage{<name>}
or even by\input{<name>.sty}
(where<name>
= csquote, url, etc.) you must move them in your preamble. If it starts by defining commands, your can keep them at this place or move them to the preamble.Note for the OP: you use
plain
as the format, which looks strange for me. Actually each conference/organization generally has its own.bst
style file which produces\bibitem
formated accordingly to their editorial rules. More specifically, make sure that you need an alphabetical-ordered or a citation-ordered bibliography. In the later case, you must use theunsrt.bst
(or a variant) in place ofplain.bst
.