[Tex/LaTex] Error: Unicode char \u8 when importing bibliography

bibtexcitinginput-encodingsjabref

I have a LaTeX document in which I improt .bib database

\bibliography{LagrangianRelax}
\bibliographystyle{alpha}

I am getting an error (I know its quite common): ! Package inputenc Error: Unicode char \u8:�d� not set up for use with LaTeX. when making a citation.

I dont know why – my editor is set to UTF8, JabRef (in which I create the .bib database) is set to UTF and I use \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

Any ideas how to solve this? Thanks for any tips…

Best Answer

Perhaps the reason is that you compile with bibtex, not biber. Bibtex doesn't understand utf8 — not even 8-bit encoding. Probably you should use biblatex — in which case the syntax for loading the database and a bibliography style should be (for the alphabetic style, for instance):

\usepackage[backend=biber,style=alphabetic]{biblatex}    
\addbibresource{LagrangianRelax.bib}

I'm unsure whether it's exactly the same style as the alphabetic.bst style file, but biblatex styles are much easier to customise than .bst files.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Problem after copying text: inputenc Error: Unicode char \u8:‭ not set up for use with LaTeX

Unhappily utf8.def does not show the numerical representation for the missing Unicode character. The missing character <char> is shown directly in macro \u8:<char>. The following example adds the numerical information in the error message:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{stringenc}
\usepackage{pdfescape}

\makeatletter
\renewcommand*{\UTFviii@defined}[1]{%
  \ifx#1\relax
    \begingroup
      % Remove prefix "\u8:"
      \def\x##1:{}%
      % Extract Unicode char from command name
      % (utf8.def does not support surrogates)
      \edef\x{\expandafter\x\string#1}%
      \StringEncodingConvert\x\x{utf8}{utf16be}% convert to UTF-16BE
      % Hexadecimal representation
      \EdefEscapeHex\x\x
      % Enhanced error message
      \PackageError{inputenc}{Unicode\space char\space \string#1\space
                              (U+\x)\MessageBreak
                              not\space set\space up\space
                              for\space use\space with\space LaTeX}\@eha
    \endgroup
  \else\expandafter
    #1%
  \fi
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
^^c2^^a0 % 7-bit input for U+00A0
\end{document}

Result:

! Package inputenc Error: Unicode char \u8:  (U+00A0)
(inputenc)                not set up for use with LaTeX.

[Tex/LaTex] inputenc error: problems reading in .bib file from jabref

I think you should check the default encoding used by JabRef. The easiest way to go is asking for utf8 encoding and use biber + biblatex instead of bibtex. Biber understands utf8 and brings may new features, so you'll have no problem with accented letters.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Problem after copying text: inputenc Error: Unicode char \u8:‭ not set up for use with LaTeX

[Tex/LaTex] inputenc error: problems reading in .bib file from jabref

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