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.
BibLaTeX
Section titled “BibLaTeX”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.
BibTeX
Section titled “BibTeX”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.
.bib
File
Section titled “.bib File”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
.
Entry Type
Section titled “Entry Type”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
.
Citation Key
Section titled “Citation Key”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.
Backend
Section titled “Backend”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}
CiteDrive
Section titled “CiteDrive”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
Overleaf
Section titled “Overleaf”A popular online LaTeX editor. Overleaf supports both BibTeX and BibLaTeX, and integrates seamlessly with tools like CiteDrive for real-time bibliography syncing.
Localization
Section titled “Localization”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.
Sorting
Section titled “Sorting”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.
URL / URLDate
Section titled “URL / URLDate”Fields used to cite online sources:
url
is the link to the resourceurldate
is the date you accessed the source
These fields are crucial when citing websites or digital publications using BibLaTeX.
Crossref
Section titled “Crossref”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.
Bibliography Style File
Section titled “Bibliography Style File”Defines how references appear in the document. With BibLaTeX, the .bst
file is replaced by the style=
option in \usepackage
.
✅ Tips for Beginners
Section titled “✅ Tips for Beginners”- 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
andurldate
.