Frequently Asked Questions
A: You are not obliged to cite JabRef, but we would greatly appreciate it if you do.
JabRef Development Team (2021). JabRef - An open-source, cross-platform citation and reference management software. Version 5.1. [https://www.jabref.org]
If you are using biblatex, you can use the entry type software, for BibTex use
@misc@Software{JabRef2021,
author = {{JabRef Development Team}},
title = {JabRef --- An open-source, cross-platform citation and reference management software},
year = {2021},
version = {5.1},
url = {https://www.jabref.org/},
}
A: You can try resetting the settings. Depending on your operating system, you may need to pass the command line arguments
-d all -n to JabRef.(E.g. in Windows this means
jabref-X.Y.exe -d all -n, where X.Y means the version number of JabRef. If this does not help, run regedit and delete the folder HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Prefs\net\sf\jabref. Be careful with regedit, as you can easily corrupt the basic Windows configuration.)A: Don't panic. No data should be damaged in your bib library. Since version 5.0 the columns in the main entry table are stored differently internally. You can reset the preferences by command line. See above.
A: Check your configuration. Disable some or all of following preferences:
- disable fulltext index (Options → Preferences → Linked files → Fulltext Index → ...)
- disable time stamps (Options → Preferences → General → Time Stamp → ...)
- disable field formatters (Library → Library Properties → Saving → Save actions → ...)
- disable autosave (Options → Preferences → File → Saving → ...)
- disable count of items in group (Options → Preferences → Groups → ...)
Any preference that has the potential to affect all your entries at once is worth inspecting.
A: We are collecting all publications we hear about at https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/wiki/JabRef-in-the-media.
A: Yes. In Options → Preferences → General, set "Default Encoding" to UTF8 and select an alternative user interface language in "Language" if required.
A: In Options → Preferences → Network, in the “Remote operation” section, put a checkmark to “Listen for remote operation on port”. This option allows new instances of JabRef to detect the instance already running, and pass files to that instead of opening a new window. (Default option since JabRef 3.0).
A: Paste the DOI in the table of entries, and JabRef will create the corresponding entry. Additionally, in Library → New entry you can select the type of the identifier in the field "ID type" and enter the identifier in "ID". A click on "Generate" should create the correct entry. If this does not work, try a web search. For more details, see Add entry using an ID.
A: There are several reasons why JabRef cannot find your identifier online. For example, your DOI is not listed in the CrossRef database if you are using the CrossRef fetcher. Another reason could be that the search result for your DOI on DOI.org returns invalid BibTeX which is unable to be read by JabRef. Try a web search instead.
A: To add this translator field to all entry types, you can use Options → Preferences → Custom editor tabs and add a translator field under one of JabRef's general field tabs (see Customize general fields). To add this translator field to a specific entry type, edit the specific entry type(s) (Options → Customize entry types) and add a translator field under required fields or optional fields, as you like (see Customize entry types).
A: Open Options → Preferences. In the “File” panel, you will find an option called “Do not wrap the following fields when saving”. This option contains a semicolon-separated list of field names. Any field you add to this list will always be stored without introduction of line breaks.
A: You need to override the default file directory for this specific library. In Library → Library properties you can override the Default file directory setting. There, you can either enter the path in General file directory (for it to be valid for all users of the file) or in User-specific file directory (for it to be valid for you only). If you simply enter “.” (a dot, without the quotes), the file directory will be the same as the .bib file directory. To place your files in a subdirectory called subdir, you can enter “./subdir” (without the quotes). Files will automatically be linked with relative paths if the files are placed in the default file directory or in a directory below it. More details on the help page about the library properties.
A: In Library → Library properties you can choose a library-specific directory in the field “General file directory”. If you want to set a directory only for you (so that other users should use the default directory), use the field “User-specific file directory”.
A: Use File → Export. As “Filter” choose “OpenOffice/LibreOffice CSV”.
A: Select the entries and go to Library → Manage keywords. There you can manage keywords appearing in all selected entries or in any selected entry. New keywords are added to all selected entries. More details about keywords in JabRef.
In Options → Preferences, tab External programs, button "Manage external file types", you can add arbitrary types. See the dedicated page about external file types.
A: Use curly braces to tell BibTeX to keep your author field as-is:
{European Commission}. In BibLaTeX, you can use label = {EC} to have EC05 as a label for a publication of the European Commission in the year 2005.A: Take a look at “Bibliographies and citations” at the UK List of TeX Frequently Asked Questions on the Web. For German readers, there is the dante e.V. FAQ.
A: Your JabRef library is already a file in Bib(La)TeX format. To export a specific subset of your library, select the entries to be exported and then choose File → Export → Save selected as plain BibTeX....
A: Paste the Bib(la)Tex code of a reference into the table of entries, and JabRef will create the new corresponding entry.
A: Drag & drop a PDF onto the table of entries (between two existing entries). JabRef will analyze the PDF and create a new entry. More details about Adding entries from PDFs.
A: Use JabRef Browser extension: with one click, JabRef browser extension identifies and extracts bibliographic information on websites and sends them to JabRef.
A: JabRef can fetch the DOI for you: select the entries and go to Lookup → Search document identifier online → DOI.
A: JabRef can fetch the PDFs for you: select the entries and to Lookup → Search full text documents online.
A: Upon compilation, LaTeX generates a file with the extension ".aux". This file contains the keys of the cited references (among other things). Using this AUX file, JabRef can extract the relevant entries. Choose the menu Tools → New sublibrary based on AUX file... , then select the AUX file.
A: In Library → Library properties, you will find a section named "Save actions". After enabling this feature, you can choose which actions should be performed for each field upon saving. That should help you keep your library tidy. More details about cleaning up entries, save actions, and check integrity.
A: Google scholar is blocking "automated" crawls which generate too much traffic in a short time. JabRef already uses a two-step approach (with the prefetched list before crawling the actual BibTeX data) to circumvent this. However, after too many crawls JabRef is being blocked. To solve this issue, see the section Traffic limitations in the Google Scholar database.
A: You have to start vim with the option
--servername (such as vim --servername MyVimServer). If you get the Unknown option argument message, it means your version of vim does not include the clientserver feature (you can check with vim --version). In such a case, you have to install another version of vim.A: In JabRef 3.0 plugin support was removed because the development team cannot keep up plugin support anymore. Nevertheless, plugins can be integrated in JabRef. See issue #152 for the current status and discussion. Please contact the author of the respective plugin and ask them to port their plugin into JabRef's code.
A: Enter XYZ in the search field located at the upper left-hand corner of the preference window.
A: After consulting JabRef's help and checking whether your question has been regarded as issue please head over to the Forum.
A: This error message has been observed on systems that use inotify. System calls to
inotify_init and inotify_add_watch set errno to EMFILE when inotify has reached its limit. The most common reason is that inotify is running too many instances. To solve this problem, contact your system administrator and request that they increase the limits defined in /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_* files.A: JabRef opens the pdf document with the application Gnome has set by default: Evince. If you want JabRef to open another application (Okular or other), in your file explorer, right-click on whatever pdf file > properties > Open With > choose your application > Set as default at the bottom right corner. From now on, both when you double-click a pdf file in your file explorer or when you ask JabRef to open it via its document viewer, your chosen application will be used.
A: JabRef automatically recognizes a change in the
bib file on disk and notifies the user of it. This is cool for network drives.Last modified 1mo ago