Skip to content

Glossary of Terms: BibLaTeX Reference Guide

📚 Glossary of Terms: BibLaTeX Reference Guide

Section titled “📚 Glossary of Terms: BibLaTeX Reference Guide”

This glossary helps you understand common terms and concepts used when working with BibLaTeX, BibTeX, and reference managers like CiteDrive. Whether you’re just getting started with LaTeX or want a deeper understanding of citation tools, this guide has you covered.


A modern bibliography package for LaTeX that provides advanced control over citation formatting. It works with biber as the backend processor and supports localization, custom styles, and more.


The original tool for managing references in LaTeX. While still widely used, BibTeX is less flexible than BibLaTeX and does not support full Unicode or modern field types.


The default backend for BibLaTeX. It reads your .bib file and handles advanced sorting, filtering, and localization. Must be selected in your LaTeX editor or Overleaf for BibLaTeX to function correctly.


A plain text file that contains your reference entries in BibTeX or BibLaTeX format. Each entry includes a citation key, type (@article, @book, etc.), and fields like title, author, year.


The category of the source you’re citing, such as:

  • @article for journal articles
  • @book for books
  • @misc for websites or miscellaneous items

BibLaTeX also includes additional types like @online, @software, @movie, @patent.


A unique identifier (e.g., smith2022) used to cite an entry in your LaTeX document using \cite{smith2022}.


Each piece of information within an entry, such as:

  • author
  • title
  • year
  • url
  • urldate (for BibLaTeX)
  • langid (language identifier for BibLaTeX)

Determines how citations and bibliographies are formatted. Examples:

  • authoryear (e.g., Smith 2022)
  • numeric (e.g., [1])
  • alphabetic (e.g., [Smi22])

BibLaTeX offers more flexibility than BibTeX in customizing styles.


Specifies the tool that processes the .bib file. For BibLaTeX, this is usually biber. For BibTeX, it is simply bibtex.

Example in LaTeX preamble:

\usepackage[backend=biber,style=authoryear]{biblatex}

A cloud-based reference manager built specifically for BibTeX and BibLaTeX users. It offers:

  • Real-time Overleaf integration
  • Smart citation capture via browser extension
  • Clean, properly formatted .bib files
  • Support for BibLaTeX-specific fields and entry types

A popular online LaTeX editor. Overleaf supports both BibTeX and BibLaTeX, and integrates seamlessly with tools like CiteDrive for real-time bibliography syncing.


BibLaTeX supports multiple languages for bibliography elements (e.g., “accessed” → “zugegriffen am” in German). Use the langid field to specify the language for each entry.


BibLaTeX lets you define how your references are ordered (e.g., by author, year, title). You can customize sorting rules using options like sorting=ynt.


A Digital Object Identifier. Often used in the doi field to provide a permanent link to journal articles or datasets.


Fields used to cite online sources:

  • url is the link to the resource
  • urldate is the date you accessed the source

These fields are crucial when citing websites or digital publications using BibLaTeX.


Used when one entry shares fields with another. For example, a @incollection may reference a @book via crossref = {bookkey}.


BibLaTeX feature that allows you to define reusable sets of fields that can be shared across entries. Useful for reducing repetition in .bib files.


Defines how references appear in the document. With BibLaTeX, the .bst file is replaced by the style= option in \usepackage.


  • Always choose biber as your backend for BibLaTeX.
  • Use CiteDrive to manage your .bib file and sync with Overleaf.
  • Include required fields (author, title, year) for each entry type.
  • For websites, don’t forget url and urldate.