BibTeX, natbib, biblatex: Managing Citations in LaTeX: BibTeX and natbib

The main web site for BibTeX, this page contains guides and other information about getting BibTeX to work for you. See the Links page to look at some of the tools available for using BibTeX. This also contains information about non-BibTeX citation tools.

Originally adapted for legal cases, jurabib is an alternative to natbib that raises the functionality of citing sources using BibTeX. This package enables automated citation with BibTeX for legal studies and the humanities. In addition, the package provides commands for specifying editors in a commentary in a convenient way. Simplified formatting of the citation as well as the bibliography entry is also provided. It is possible to display the (short) title of a work only if an authors is cited with multiple works. Giving a full citation in the text, conforming to the bibliography entry, is supported. Several options are provided which might be of special interest for those outside legal studies—for instance, displaying multiple full citations. In addition, the format of last names and first names of authors may be changed easily. Cross references to other footnotes are possible. Language dependent handling of bibliography entries is possible by the special language field.

This guide is hard, but useful. If you're looking to do anything incredibly complicated with BibTeX, use special characters, or need to hack more functionality, look no further. This 48-page tutorial presents and explains, as clearly and exhaustively as possible, what BibTEX can do.

Originally implemented only for the natural sciences (hence the document title), this package builds more functionality into your citations and is a good choice for using styles. "The natbib package is a reimplementation of the LATEX \cite command, to work with both author{year and numerical citations. It is compatible with the standard bibliographic style les, such as plain.bst, as well as with those for harvard, apalike, chicago, astron, authordate, and of course natbib."

May be installed within specific software pieces or separately; see documentation. The bundle provides a package that implements both author-year and numbered references, as well as much detailed of support for other bibliography use. Also Provided are versions of the standard BibTeX styles that are compatible with natbib—plainnat, unsrtnat, abbrnat. The bibliography styles produced by custom-bib are designed from the start to be compatible with natbib.

If you decide natbib is for you, this reference sheet provides essential reference in just over five full pages. "The natbib package is a reimplementation of the LATEX \cite command, to work with both author-year and numerical citations. It is compatible with the standard bibliographic style les, such as plain.bst, as well as with those for harvard, apalike, chicago, astron, authordate, and of course natbib."