[Tex/LaTex] To have ISBN field in Biblatex for Bibliography

biblatexbibtexnatbib

I want to have ISBN field in my Bibtex.
I learned from Andrew that it is best done with Biblatex as a whole.
So I want to move from Natbib to Biblatex.

I am getting this error to Andrew's code, when I have the file article.bib in the folder:

enter image description here

How can you show ISBN field of articles and books in Bibliography?

So mainly

./article.tex:2: LaTeX Error: Missing \begin{document}.

I have used Typesetting engines XeLaTeX and Pdflatex, but get the same errors.

Best Answer

You should be loading the biblatex package with the natbib option, not the natbib package:

Sample output

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[
    backend=bibtex, 
    natbib=true, 
    bibstyle=verbose, citestyle=verbose,    % bibstyle extensively modifed below
    doi=true, url=true,                     % excluded from citations below
    citecounter=true, citetracker=true,
    block=space, 
    backref=true, backrefstyle=two,
    abbreviate=false,
    isbn=true
]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}

\nocite{*}
\printbibliography

\end{document}

where the bib file contains:

@Book{Armstrong:symmetry,
  author =   {Armstrong, M. A.},
  title =    {Groups and symmetry},
  series =   {Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics},
  publisher =    {Springer-Verlag},
  address =  {New York},
  year =     1988,
  pages =    {xii+186},
  isbn =     {0-387-96675-7}
}

Also, in a user level document the correct command is \usepackage not \RequirePackage

On the other hand, if you were really intending to use the natbib package, then the syntax would be:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{natbib}

\begin{document}

\nocite{*}
\bibliographystyle{plainnat}
\bibliography{bibfile}

\end{document}

producing

second sample

with isbn included by default.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Biblatex-Chicago in TexShop: Error: Cannot find .bib

As others have remarked, biber cannot find your .bib file because you didn't tell it its full name, namely DissCh2-Bibliography.bib. Giving the full name and getting rid of the \bibliographystyle and \bibliography commands should get you up and running again.

... However, a few remarks are in order given that you are just getting your dissertation up and running (too long for a comment). Trust me, it is better to make the change(s) now rather than part-way through or right before the end.

First, although it may be tempting to typeset an individual thesis chapter in the documentclass article, this is not really recommended. Eventually, you will have a whole thesis composed of several chapters (and perhaps appendices and other things), and the article class is completely unsuitable for it. You should switch your workflow ASAP to either the report or book class, or (my recommendation) one of the more feature-rich classes like memoir or the KOMA-script classes (scrreprt or scrbook), or perhaps classicthesis. These feature-rich classes give you a lot of functionality 'out of the box'.

Let's pretend, however, that you are using the simple report class (nothing wrong with it, after all: it just means you'll need to load more packages to do the tweaking you want/need/desire).

\documentclass[letterpaper,12pt]{report}

% \usepackage{fullpage}  % <-- probably not needed; use geometry
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
% \usepackage{nameref}   % <-- just load hyperref instead (see below)
\usepackage{marginnote}
\usepackage[top=1in, bottom=1in, inner=0.25in, outer=2.75in, marginparwidth=2.50in]{geometry}
\usepackage{setspace}

So far so good. I'd recommend loading fontenc and inputenc is you plan on using pdflatex to compile your documents (or fontspec if using xelatex or lualatex):

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}    % strongly recommended
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} % if the in the humanities, you probably will need more than just ASCII

Now the real issue, biblatex; I strongly recommend you load babel and csquotes for quotations and multi-lingual support. For now, we'll keep it simple (only English):

\usepackage[american]{babel} % or option 'british'
\usepackage{csquotes}        % many options skipped for now
\usepackage[
    notes,
    backend=biber,
    hyperref=true  % <-- note how you are asking for hyperref integration
]{biblatex-chicago}

\addbibresource{DissCh2-Bibliography.bib} % biber can do more than just `.bib` files, so you need to specify the extension.

Normally, you should load hyperref as the last package (or nearly last: see this question. We'll keep it simple again:

\usepackage{xcolor} % <-- for coloured links
\usepackage[colorlinks, allcolors=blue, breaklinks]{hyperref} % <-- many more options...

And that should be enough to get you started. Putting it all together, you could do the following:

\documentclass[letterpaper,12pt]{report}
% the following filecontents is just 
% for the sake of getting a self-contained example file
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@Article{aaa,
  author = {Smith, John},
  title =  {Article Title},
  journal = {Journal Title},
  date =    2000,
  volume =  30,
  number =  2,
  pages =   {100--120},
}
\end{filecontents}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{marginnote}
\usepackage[top=1in, bottom=1in, inner=0.25in, outer=2.75in, marginparwidth=2.50in]{geometry}
\usepackage{setspace}

\usepackage[american]{babel} 
\usepackage{csquotes}        
\usepackage[
    notes,
    backend=biber,
    hyperref=true  
]{biblatex-chicago}

% \addbibresource{DissCh2-Bibliography.bib}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib} % <-- 'name' of bibliography above

\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage[colorlinks, allcolors=blue, breaklinks]{hyperref}

\begin{document}

\chapter{DissCh2}

A citation.\autocite{aaa}

\printbibliography
\end{document}

Now, the reason this structure makes sense is because it will allow you to break up your chapters and then include them in this master file via \include{DissCh2} (say). This will make editing your chapters a little easier since things are more compartmentalized:

% greatly simplified masterfile
\documentclass{report}
... preamble stuff goes here
\begin{document}
\include{abstract}
\include{acknowledgements}
\tableofcontents
... other front matter
\include{chapter01}
\include{DissCh2}
... back matter stuff
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Biber does not call citations properly with biblatex in Overleaf

Variations in Error Handling: Biber vs. BibTeX

As pointed out by @moewe in the comments on the original question, Biber can be more fussy than BibTeX when handling errors. In this case, this meant that the pdf would compile as intended (including the bibliography) when run with BibTeX, but would compile without the bibliography with Biber.

To troubleshoot this, download the .blg file from the output logs. This will highlight any errors in the .bib file. In this case, there was an additional { in the title of one reference, which caused issues when this was parsed by the Biber backend.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Biblatex-Chicago in TexShop: Error: Cannot find .bib

Biber does not call citations properly with biblatex in Overleaf

Variations in Error Handling: Biber vs. BibTeX

Related Question