[Tex/LaTex] Issue with biblatex: bibhang already defined

achemsobiblatexbibliographiesnatbib

I am trying to convert my document from bibtex to biblatex to use some of the new features there.

I get this error:

! LaTeX Error: Command \bibhang already defined.

I assume that this is caused by a conflict between biblatex and one of my other packages but I have not been able to find it.

This is an example with the packages I am using:

\documentclass[journal=jacsat,manuscript=article]{achemso}
\setkeys{acs}{usetitle=true}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}         
\usepackage{dcolumn}    
\usepackage{subfigure}    
\usepackage{amsmath}    
\usepackage{xr}    
\usepackage{placeins}    
\usepackage{setspace}    
\usepackage[table,xcdraw]{xcolor}

\usepackage[backend=biber,style=chem-acs,maxbibnames=100]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{refs.bib}

\externaldocument{supporting-info}

\title{Title of my paper}

\author{Name}    
\affiliation{University}

\date{\today}

\begin{document}

text text text

\printbibliography

\end{document}

I tried to delete the lines referring to natbib from the achemso.sty file, but that did not resolve the issue.

From achemso.sty:

    %%\AtBeginDocument{
%%  \def\nmv@natbib@detect{%
%%    \ifNAT@super
%%      \expandafter\acs@nmv@activate
%%   \else
%%      \expandafter\acs@autonote
%%    \fi
%%  }
%%}

\ifacs@super
  %%\RequirePackage[sort&compress,numbers,super]{natbib}
\else
  %%\RequirePackage[sort&compress,numbers,round]{natbib}
  \def\citenumfont{\textit}
\fi

Edit: I should note that the program does produce a PDF but it gives me an error that I am trying to remove.

Best Answer

You are using the achemso document class. That class loads natbib, which is incompatible with biblatex.

If you want to submit to the ACS you should not use biblatex, you should use the .bst style that comes bundled with achemso (https://ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/achemso).

If you do not plan to submit and just want to use this for your personal documents, you need a way to stop achemso.cls from loading natbib. This should be doable with the approaches from biblatex instead of natbib in elsarticle, how?. You should not modify achemso.cls directly. But if you don't plan to submit to the ACS, you could also simply use another document class.

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