[Tex/LaTex] Will JabRef affect the BibDesk BibTeX file

bibdeskbibtexjabref

I have a large bibliography with linked pdfs on my mac which I manage with BibDesk. It is on Google Drive and I want to open it in JabRef on my linux laptop. Will either of these managers affect fields that are specific to the other? e.g. might JabRef cause me to lose the pdf links that BibDesk uses?

Perhaps I should (git) version the whole directory…

Best Answer

I strongly recommend keeping your .bib file in a version control system, regardless. However, BibDesk will not automatically add/remove fields, unless you tell it to. As far as I can recall, the only fields it might modify are the file links, which have a Bdsk- prefix. BibDesk's file links are pretty robust, and they're also private to BibDesk; as far as I know, JabRef and other reference managers don't even attempt to read them, so they should just pass through.

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[Tex/LaTex] BibTeX and Jabref

JabRef is a program for managing BibTeX database (.bib) files but does not directly affect what happens in LaTeX. Adding a database to a .tex file does not add in the citations. You need either \cite or \nocite: the latter adds references to the bibliography without a citation in the text

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@article{demo1,
  author = {Other, A. N.},
  journal = {J. Irrep. Res.},
  title = {Some things we did},
  year  = {2012},
}
@article{demo2,
  author = {Nobacon, D.},
  journal = {J. Chumb.},
  title = {Tubthumping},
  year  = {2012},
}
\end{filecontents}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[super]{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{unsrtnat}
\begin{document}
Some text \cite{demo1} more text\nocite{demo2}.
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

You will need to run LaTeX, then BibTeX, then LaTeX twice for the document to be complete.

[Tex/LaTex] Error bibtex with jabref

The warning you have says

I didn't find a database entry for "S�nchez"

which looks very much like an accented character in the key (Sánchez). That's not the same as the entry you show in your database (Sanchez), so unsurprisingly it's not matched.

I'd caution against using accents in keys in general. The 'classic' BibTeX program is 7-bit and while BibTeX8 expands to 8-bit it still doesn't support accents in keys. The BibTeX format essentially defines keys as strictly ASCII, and both the 'classical' tools and alternative parsers may break with other characters in keys.

Best Answer

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[Tex/LaTex] BibTeX and Jabref

[Tex/LaTex] Error bibtex with jabref

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