[Tex/LaTex] How to correctly position biblatex \autocite

biblatexcitingspacing

I'm using biblatex 1.2a and \autocite because I don't know if the final format of the book will require inline or superscript citations.

Seems the correct usage of \autocite is preceding it by a space like:

my text~\autocite{Einstein1905}

This way both autocite=inline and autocite=superscript position correctly the citation (no experiment done yet with the other autocite formats). But I'm tired to enter all these small ~.

My question:

Is this the correct way to use \autocite? Or is this a case to support an enhancement request for biblatex (to automatically generate the space for inline)?

Best Answer

According to the example documents shipped with biblatex, the "correct" usage (or at least the one envisioned by the package author) is

Some text \autocite{key}.

(See especially document 30-style-numeric.)

I agree it is arguable that in-text-citations should be prepended by a non-breakable space for numeric styles not using superscripts. (However, non-breakable spaces would often produce bad line breaks for inline author-year-citations.)

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] use biblatex with Tufte classes

Rather than redefining the \cite command, I would use biblatex’s ability to let every citation go into a footnote (option autocite=footnote) which then will go into a sidenote (since tufte-latex uses the normal \footnote command for sidenotes). The following works for me with the tufte-common.def 3.5.2 from the tufte-latex svn repository. To override the original def file, just save the revised one as $TEXMFHOME/tex/latex/tufte-latex/tufte-common.def, where $TEXMFHOME is the path returned by kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFHOME.

\documentclass[nobib]{tufte-handout}

\usepackage{hyphenat}
\usepackage[
  style=verbose,
  autocite=footnote,
  backend=biber
]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}

\begin{document}

This,\autocite{springer} should be a side note and this\autocite{springer} should too.

\printbibliography 

\end{document}

enter image description here

[Tex/LaTex] Biblatex / Biber full citation for first occurrence only

Using a modified tufte-common.def file you can create tufte-latex documents with biblatex. A limitation is that tufte-latex modifies footnotes. So biblatex features such as \smartcite inside footnotes and footnote detection with \iffootnote may not work as intended. Most of this has already been covered in another post.

As for the citation style, you can get most of the way there with some edits to the textcite bibliography macro and \smartcite. Both of these are defined in numeric.cbx.

\documentclass[nobib]{tufte-handout}
\usepackage{hyphenat}
\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=numeric,citetracker=true,autocite=footnote]{biblatex}

\makeatletter

% If not seen, avoid compact lists and print full citation
\renewbibmacro*{textcite}{%
  \ifciteseen
    {}
    {\clearfield{namehash}}%
  \iffieldequals{namehash}{\cbx@lasthash}
    {\multicitedelim}
    {\cbx@tempa
     \ifciteseen
       {\ifnameundef{labelname}
          {\printfield[citetitle]{labeltitle}}
          {\printnames{labelname}}}
       {\usedriver
          {\DeclareNameAlias{sortname}{default}%
           \clearfield{pages}%
           \clearfield{pagetotal}}
          {\thefield{entrytype}}}%
     \addspace\bibopenbracket}%
  \ifnumequal{\value{citecount}}{1}
    {\usebibmacro{prenote}}
    {}%
  \usebibmacro{cite}%
  \savefield{namehash}{\cbx@lasthash}%
  \gdef\cbx@tempa{\bibclosebracket\multicitedelim}}

% Make \smartcite like \textcite
\DeclareCiteCommand{\smartcite}[\iffootnote\mkbibbrackets\mkbibfootnote]
  {\let\cbx@tempa=\empty
   \undef\cbx@lasthash}
  {\usebibmacro{citeindex}%
   \usebibmacro{textcite}}
  {}
  {\usebibmacro{postnote}%
   \bibclosebracket}

\makeatother

\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
\begin{document}
One of the most prominent and distinctive features of this style is the
extensive use of sidenotes \autocites(See)()[10--15]{knuth:ct:a}[10]{companion}.
There is a wide margin to provide ample room for sidenotes and small figures
\autocite{knuth:ct:a,knuth:ct:b}. Any footnotes will automatically be converted to
sidenotes.\footnote{Results from \textcite{knuth:ct:a,knuth:ct:b,companion} showed
that...}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

enter image description here

Some notes:

The autocite=footnote option setting makes \autocite use \smartcite as its backend citation command.
The \ifciteseen test needs citation tracking enabled. In the example global tracking is enabled via citetracker=true. Alternative settings are possible. Refer to the manual for details.
Full citations are printed with \usedriver. The first argument to this command allows you to hook code in before printing. This is a good place to suppress fields with \clearfield and friends. In the example, I suppress the pages and pagetotal fields to avoid confusion with page references in postnotes.
In numeric, \textcite generates compact citation lists. This complicates printing full citations. The edits to textcite take an easy way out by simply replacing the labelname or labeltitle with the full citation.
The numeric style isn't particularly suited to this customization. Refer to the verbose style or any of its variants for some better alternatives.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] use biblatex with Tufte classes

[Tex/LaTex] Biblatex / Biber full citation for first occurrence only

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