[Tex/LaTex] Open brace in BibTeX fields

biblatexbibtex

How can I enter the following title (of an imaginary book) in a Bib(La)TeX entry: "How to use { in Bib(La)TeX?"

BibTeX suggests that braces can be backslash-escaped, but both BibTeX processor and Biber fail to process the title if entered this way.

@book{test_123,
        title = {How to use \{ in Bib(La)TeX?}
}

Biber produces

INFO - This is Biber 1.9 running in TOOL mode
INFO - Logfile is 'test.bib.blg'
INFO - Looking for bibtex format file 'test.bib'
INFO - Decoding LaTeX character macros into UTF-8
INFO - Found BibTeX data source 'test.bib'
WARN - Entry test_123 does not parse correctly
WARN - BibTeX subsystem: C:\*********\test.bib_5644.utf8, line 3, warning: possible runaway string started at line 2
ERROR - BibTeX subsystem: C:\********\test.bib_5644.utf8, line 4, syntax error: at end of input, expected one of: number, name (entry type, key, field, or macro name) or quoted string ({...} or "...")
INFO - WARNINGS: 2
INFO - ERRORS: 1

This also fails in the "abstract" and "file" fields.

I reported this to the Biber developers and was told that someone here might know a trick. Also, this was previously asked (in a roundabout way I guess) here

Best Answer

You can use the \vphantom command to include the closing bracket but not showing it, i.e.

@book{test_123,
    title = {How to use \{\vphantom{\}} in Bib(La)TeX?},
    author = {Vinckevicius, Aurimas}
}

works for me with normal BibTeX and the following tex file:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\cite{test_123}
\bibliography{references}
\bibliographystyle{alpha}
\end{document}

Here is how it looks:

output pdf

It might be that (vertical) spacing is slightly influenced.

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