[Tex/LaTex] Prevent page and column breaks mid bibliography entries in Biblatex/biber

biberbiblatexbibliographiescolumnbreakpage-breaking

Using biblatex and biber is there any way to prevent a page/column break from occurring mid item? The image below shows bibliography items being split both at the end of a column and at the end of the page. I have found that setting block=npar solves the issue, but also reformats the bibliography by inserting line breaks in the individual entries.

How can I protect bibliography entries from page and column breaks within the bibliography?

As you can see entries are split across columns and pages both, neither of which looks particularly good. Moreover, as the image illustrates some issues are also visible after a page break: LaTeX splits a large entry in two across both columns. I would like LaTeX to enter both entries in the same column below one another.

I have included a MWE and an image from my actual work.

\RequirePackage{filecontents} 
 \begin{filecontents}{jobname.bib}
  @article{DoeA,
  title={The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog},
  author={Doe, John and Bar, Foo and Bob, Joe and Kid, Billy The and Lucky, Luke and Kong, King},
  journal={Journal A of supposed excellence and uncomfortably long titles to make this example work. },
  year={2001}
  }
    @article{DoeB,
  title={The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog},
  author={Doe, John and Bar, Foo and Bob, Joe and Kid, Billy The and Lucky, Luke and Kong, King},
  journal={Journal B of supposed excellence and uncomfortably long titles to make this example work. },
  year={2001}
  }
    @article{DoeC,
  title={The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog},
  author={Doe, John and Bar, Foo and Bob, Joe and Kid, Billy The and Lucky, Luke and Kong, King},
  journal={Journal C of supposed excellence and uncomfortably long titles to make this example work. },
  year={2001}
  }

  @article{Genius02,
  title={Title B},
  author={Genius, Evil and Vader, Darth},
  journal={Journal B},
  year={2002}

}
\end{filecontents}
\documentclass[10pt]{article}

\usepackage{multicol}
  \usepackage[left=2.1cm,right=1.4cm,top=23.5cm,bottom=2cm]{geometry}%Etter mal fra npprj


  \usepackage[backend=bibtex]{biblatex}
    \addbibresource{jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{2}
  \nocite{DoeA,DoeB,DoeC,Genius02}

\printbibliography
\end{multicols}
\end{document}

Best Answer

Your problem is that you need to change the values of different penaltys to 10000 (not allowed).

The easierst way to do that is to patch the relevant commands with package etoolbox and the command \patchcmd{\command-to-be-patched}{search-code}{replace-code}{sucess}{failure} (please see the comments!):

\usepackage{etoolbox}  % <============================ to patch penaltys
\patchcmd{\thebibliography}{\clubpenalty4000}{\clubpenalty10000}{}{}     % no orphans
\patchcmd{\thebibliography}{\widowpenalty4000}{\widowpenalty10000}{}{}   % no widows
\patchcmd{\bibsetup}{\interlinepenalty=5000}{\interlinepenalty=10000}{}{} % no break of entry

So with this complete MWE

\RequirePackage{filecontents} 
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{DoeA,
  title={The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog},
  author={Doe, John and Bar, Foo and Bob, Joe and Kid, Billy The and Lucky, Luke and Kong, King},
  journal={Journal A of supposed excellence and uncomfortably long titles to make this example work. },
  year={2001},
}
@article{DoeB,
  title={The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog},
  author={Doe, John and Bar, Foo and Bob, Joe and Kid, Billy The and Lucky, Luke and Kong, King},
  journal={Journal B of supposed excellence and uncomfortably long titles to make this example work. },
  year={2001}
}
@article{DoeC,
  title={The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog},
  author={Doe, John and Bar, Foo and Bob, Joe and Kid, Billy The and Lucky, Luke and Kong, King},
  journal={Journal C of supposed excellence and uncomfortably long titles to make this example work. },
  year={2001},
}
@article{Genius02,
  title={Title B},
  author={Genius, Evil and Vader, Darth},
  journal={Journal B},
  year={2002},
}
\end{filecontents}


\documentclass[10pt]{article}

\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage[left=2.1cm,right=1.4cm,top=23.5cm,bottom=2cm]{geometry}

\usepackage[backend=bibtex]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\usepackage{showframe} % <========================= to show typing area!
\usepackage{etoolbox}  % <============================ to patch penaltys
\patchcmd{\thebibliography}{\clubpenalty4000}{\clubpenalty10000}{}{}     % no orphans
\patchcmd{\thebibliography}{\widowpenalty4000}{\widowpenalty10000}{}{}   % no widows
\patchcmd{\bibsetup}{\interlinepenalty=5000}{\interlinepenalty=10000}{}{} % no break of entry


\begin{document}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\nocite{DoeA,DoeB,DoeC,Genius02}

\printbibliography
\end{multicols}
\end{document}

you get the following result (I used package showframe to visualise the resulting typing area):

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] multibib – hyperref doesn’t work for the second bibliography

Since multibib supports natbib, and natbib supports hyperref, load natbib, too.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[english]{babel}

\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{biblio.bib}
  @inproceedings{article, title = "{Title}", author = "Authors", booktitle = "{BT}"}
\end{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{awebsite.bib}
  @article{articleweb, author = {A}, title = "{Title2}", year = {2013}, note = {\url{URL}}}
\end{filecontents}

\usepackage{natbib}         %% load this, too
\usepackage{multibib}
\newcites{awebsite}{Another bibliography}

\usepackage[colorlinks=true]{hyperref}

\begin{document}
The quick brown fox \cite[p.4]{article} jumps over
\cite[p.5]{articleweb} the lazy dog \citeawebsite[p.6]{articleweb}.

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{biblio}

\bibliographystyleawebsite{plain}
\bibliographyawebsite{awebsite}
\end{document}

gives

sample output

[Tex/LaTex] Line breaks in bibliography with biblatex/biber

The issue arises because of the way \mkpageprefix is defined. As described in the manual, it inserts \ppspace between the string for 'pp' or similar and the page number/range itself. If you want to disable all prefixing you can do

\DeclareFieldFormat[inbook]{pages}{#1}

but this of course doesn't work if you want to do it selectively. Turning the string into a no-op doesn't work because \ppspace is still inserted, whilst making that breakable of course fails with special cases.

There's currently not an interface to alter the behaviour, that I know of, but we can alter it with a small redefinition:

\makeatletter
\protected\long\def\blx@mkpageprefix#1[#2]#3{%
  \ifstrequal{#1}{page}
    {}
    {\ifnumeral{#3}
      {\bibstring{#1}\ppspace}
      {\ifnumerals{#3}
         {\bibstring{#1s}\ppspace}
         {\def\pno{\bibstring{#1}}%
          \def\ppno{\bibstring{#1s}}}}}%
  \blx@mkpageprefix@i[#2]{#3}}
\makeatletter

Here, I've added a test to see if the current type is the standard pages, and to skip the bibstring and space if it is. A complete example

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{geometry}

\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{new-stuff,
  author    =   {Watt, Brian},
  title     =   {Happy Times with Penguins},
  publisher =   {Harvard University Press},
  address   =   {Cambridge, MA},
  year      =   1995,
  pagination    =   {section}}
@inbook{den-art-coll,
    crossref            =   {den-coll},
    title               =   {Personal Chips and Getting Oneself Good},
    pages               =   {345--564},
    chapter             =   89}
@inbook{harvey-art-coll,
    crossref            =   {old-stuff},
    title               =   {Personal Chips and Getting Oneself Good},
    pages               =   {345--564},
    chapter             =   89}
@suppbook{den-coll-intro,
    crossref            =   {den-coll},
    title               =   {Introduction},
    pages               =   {1--9}}
@book{den-coll,
  author                =   {Till, Jr., Dennis E.},
    booktitle           =   {Penguin Land and Further North: Human Influence},
    title               =   {Penguin Land and Further North: Human Influence},
    publisher           =   {Oxford University Press},
    year                =   2008,
    address             =   {Oxford and New York}}
@book{old-stuff,
  author                =   {Harvey, Jr., Dennis E.},
    booktitle           =   {Penguin Land and Further North: Human Influence},
    title               =   {Penguin Land and Further North: Human Influence},
    publisher           =   {Someone \& Daughters},
    year                =   1567,
    address             =   {Oxford},
    bookpagination          =   {paragraph}}
\end{filecontents}
\usepackage[citestyle=authoryear-comp,bibstyle=authoryear,mergedate=basic,isbn=false,url=false,eprint=false,dashed=true,doi=false,sortcites=true,backend=biber,mincrossrefs=6]{biblatex}
\makeatletter
\protected\long\def\blx@mkpageprefix#1[#2]#3{%
  \ifstrequal{#1}{page}
    {}
    {\ifnumeral{#3}
      {\bibstring{#1}\ppspace}
      {\ifnumerals{#3}
         {\bibstring{#1s}\ppspace}
         {\def\pno{\bibstring{#1}}%
          \def\ppno{\bibstring{#1s}}}}}%
  \blx@mkpageprefix@i[#2]{#3}}
\makeatother
\bibliography{\jobname}
\begin{document}

  \autocite{den-art-coll, den-coll-intro, harvey-art-coll}

  \textcite[1--3]{new-stuff}

  \printbibliography

\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] multibib – hyperref doesn’t work for the second bibliography

[Tex/LaTex] Line breaks in bibliography with biblatex/biber

Related Question