[Tex/LaTex] natbib, IEEEtran and alphanumeric citation: is there an IEEEtranSAN style available

biblatexbibunitsieeetrannatbib

The natbib package provides three versions of the standard BibTeX bibliography styles compatible with author-year citations (\citet, \citeauthor, \citeyear):

  • plainnat
  • abbrvnat
  • unsrtnat

The IEEEtran package provides five different style files:

  • IEEEtran: the standard IEEEtran BibTeX style file. For use with IEEE work.
  • IEEEtranS: a version of IEEEtran.bst that sorts the entries.

Not for normal IEEE use:

  • IEEEtranSA: like IEEEtranS, but with alphanumeric citation tags like alpha.
  • IEEEtranN: like IEEEtran, but based on plainnat and is compatible with natbib.
  • IEEEtranSN: sorting version of IEEEtranN.

Although IEEEtranN and IEEEtranSN are not recommended for normal IEEE use, natbib can be loaded with the option numbers, which complies with the guidelines.

I'm writing a document with several chapters and I'm using bibunits to generate partial references lists in some of the chapters. The references get numbered separately in the partial lists and in the global bibliography, thus each bibitem has two different numbers along the document, which is quite inconsistent.

It is not for normal IEEE use, so I may just use the authoryear option. However, many references where published in the same year, and I think that having a unique key to distinguish may help. Unfortunately, IEEEtranSA (with alphanumeric citation tags like alpha) is not compatible with natbib.

Do you know any style like IEEEtran<S>AN, which stands for alphanumeric citation tags like alpha and compatible with natbib? I'm about to start analysing the differences between IEEEtran and IEEEtranN on one side, IEEEtranS and IEEEtranSA on the other, and finally IEEEtranS and IEEEtranSN. But I'd like to know if there is any previous work which I have not found.

Best Answer

As far as I'm aware, there is no such a style as IEEEtranSAN which is compatible with natbib. However, following the recommendation and explanations by @cfr, I've changed to biblatex and biblatex-ieee. The minimum changes are:

\documentclass[a4paper]{report}

%\usepackage[numbers]{natbib}
\usepackage[backend=bibtex,style=ieee-alphabetic,natbib=true]{biblatex} %added
\addbibresource{IEEEfull.bib} %added
\addbibresource{IEEEexample.bib} %added

\begin{document}

\noindent
\citet{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citet[chap. 2]{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citep{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citep[chap. 2]{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citep[see][]{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citep[see][chap. 2]{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citet*{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citep*{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citeauthor{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citeauthor*{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citeyear{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\citeyearpar{IEEEexample:article_typical} \\
\cite{IEEEexample:article_typical}
\nocite{IEEEexample:shellCTANpage}

%\bibliographystyle{IEEEtranSN}
%\bibliography{IEEEfull,IEEEexample}
\printbibliography %added

\end{document}

I get the expected results with any of the citation commands, alphanumeric keys are shown instead of numbers and the style is correct.

Apart from those links in the comments, I think this Q&A is worth checking when considering to change from natbib and bibtex to biblatex and, probably, biber.

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