JabRef
v4
v4
  • JabRef Bibliography Management
  • General information about JabRef
    • Entry Editor
    • Best Practices
    • Command line use and options
    • Automatic Backup (.sav and .bak) and Autosave
    • Remote operation
    • Installation
  • About BibTeX and its fields
    • URL and DOI links in JabRef
    • File links in JabRef
    • Links to other entries
    • The 'owner' field
    • Time stamped fileds
    • Journal abbreviations
    • Special Fields
    • Set/clear/rename fields
    • Field content selector
    • Strings
  • Finding, Sorting, and Cleaning Entries
    • Searching within the library
    • Searching externally using Online Services
      • ACM Portal
      • arXiv
      • CiteSeerX
      • DBLP
      • DOAJ
      • Google Scholar
      • GVK
      • IEEEXplore
      • INSPIRE-HEP
      • MathSciNet
      • MEDLINE
      • SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System
      • Springer
      • Unpaywall
      • zbMATH
    • Searching externally using Publication Identifiers
      • DiVA
      • DOI -- Digital Object Identifier
      • IACR eprint IDs
      • ISBN number
      • Medline
      • RFC document
      • SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System
      • Title of the paper
    • Add unlinked PDFs including BibTeX data into the database
    • Synchronize file links
    • Cleanup entries
    • Save actions
    • Check integrity
    • Get BibTeX data from DOI
    • Find duplicates
    • Merge entries
    • Groups
    • Replace string
  • Import and Export
    • Import
      • JabRef Browser Extension
      • Custom import filters
      • Import from Microsoft Word -- MS Office Bibliography XML format
      • Import inspection window
      • New subdatabase based on AUX file
      • New entry from plain text
    • Export
      • Custom export filters
      • EndNote Export Filter
      • Export to an External SQL Database
      • Export to Microsoft Word -- MS Office Bibliography XML format
    • Other integrations
      • LaTeX Citations Tab
      • OpenOffice/LibreOffice integration
      • Pushing to external editor application
      • XMP metadata support in JabRef
    • Knowledge
      • Comparison of the Medline (txt), Medline (XML), and RIS format
  • Collaborative Work
    • Sharing a Bib(La)TeX Database
    • Shared SQL Database
    • Migration of pre-3.6 SQL databases into a shared SQL database
  • Configuration of JabRef
    • Customize the BibTeX key generator
    • Customize entry types
    • Customize general fields
    • Customize key bindings
    • Database properties window
    • Entry preview setup
    • Manage external file types
    • Manage protected terms
    • The string editor
  • Frequently Asked Questions and Howtos
    • General FAQs
    • Contributing
    • Sharing
    • How Tos
      • How to expand first names of a BibTeX entry
      • How to Improve the Help Page
      • How to translate the JabRef User Interface
    • FAQs on Operating Systems
      • Linux
      • Mac OS X
      • Windows
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • JabRef's conventions
  • Fields in the header of a bib file
  • Standard BibTeX fields
  • Non-standard fields
  • JabRef-specific fields
  • Define your own fields
  • Hints on fields
  • Further information resources
  • BibTeX files
  • BibLatex files
  • Bib(La)TeX files in the JabRef repository
  • Good references for the BibTex "standard"
  • BibLaTex standard
  • BibTeX parser

Was this helpful?

Edit on GitHub
Export as PDF

About BibTeX and its fields

PreviousInstallationNextURL and DOI links in JabRef

Last updated 3 years ago

Was this helpful?

JabRef helps you work with your BibTeX databases, but there are still rules to keep in mind when editing your entries, to ensure that your database is treated properly by the BibTeX program.

JabRef's conventions

Fields in the header of a bib file

JabRef stores the encoding of the file and (in case a shared is used) the ID of the shared database in the header of the bib file.

Encoding

% Encoding: <encoding>: States the encoding of a BibTeX file. E.g., % Encoding: UTF-8

Shared Id

To enable , JabRef adds % DBID: <id> to the header. This helps JabRef identifying the SQL database where the file belongs. E.g., % DBID: 2mvhh73ge3hc5fosdsvuoa808t.

Standard BibTeX fields

There is a lot of different fields in BibTeX, and some additional fields that you can set in JabRef.

The following fields are recognized by the default bibliography styles:

  • bibtexkey A unique string used to refer to the entry in LaTeX documents. Note that when referencing an entry from LaTeX, the key must match case-sensitively with the reference string. Some characters should not be used in bibtexkey as they are not compatible or not recommended:

    { } ( ) , \ " - # ~ ^ : '

  • address Usually the address of the publisher or other type of institution. For major publishing houses, you may omit the information entirely or give simply the city. For small publishers, on the other hand, you can help the reader by giving the complete address.

  • annote An annotation. It is not used by the standard bibliography styles, but may be used by others that produce an annotated bibliography.

  • author This field should contain the complete author list for your entry. The names are separated by the word and, even if there are more than two authors. Each name can be written in two equivalent forms:

    Donald E. Knuth or Knuth, Donald E.

    Eddie van Halen or van Halen, Eddie

    The second form should be used for authors with more than two names, to differentiate between middle names and last names.

  • booktitle Title of a book, part of which is being cited. For book entries, use the title field instead.

  • chapter A chapter (or section or whatever) number.

  • crossref The database key of the entry being cross referenced.

  • edition The edition of a book--for example, ``Second''. This should be an ordinal, and should have the first letter capitalized, as shown here; the standard styles convert to lower case when necessary.

  • editor This field is analogue to the author field. If there is also an author field, then the editor field gives the editor of the book or collection in which the reference appears.

  • howpublished How something strange has been published. The first word should be capitalized.

  • institution The sponsoring institution of a technical report.

  • journal The name of a journal or magazine. The name of a journal can be abbreviated using a "string". To define such string, use the .

  • key Used for alphabetizing, cross referencing, and creating a label when the ``author'' information is missing. This field should not be confused with the key that appears in the \cite command and at the beginning of the database entry.

  • month The month in which the work was published or, for an unpublished work, in which it was written. You should use the standard three-letter abbreviation of the English names (jan, feb, mar, apr, may, jun, jul, aug, sep, oct, nov, dec).

  • note Any additional information that can help the reader. The first word should be capitalized.

  • number

    The number of a journal, magazine, technical report, or of a work in a series. An issue of a journal or magazine is usually identified by its volume and number; the organization that issues a technical report usually gives it a number; and sometimes books are given numbers in a named series.

  • organization The organization that sponsors a conference or that publishes a manual.

  • pages One or more page numbers or range of numbers, such as 42--111 or 7,41,73--97 or 43+ (which indicates page 43 and following pages). The standard styles convert a single dash (as in 7-33) to the double dash used in TeX to denote number ranges (as in 7--3).

  • publisher The publisher's name.

  • school The name of the academic institution where a thesis was written.

  • series The name of a series or set of books. When citing an entire book, the title field gives its title and an optional series field gives the name of a series or multi-volume set in which the book is published.

  • title The title of the work. The capitalization may depend on the bibliography style and on the language used. For words that have to be capitalized (such as a proper noun), enclose the word (or its first letter) in braces.

  • type The type of a technical report - for example, "Research Note".

  • volume The volume of a journal or multivolume book.

  • year The year of publication or, for an unpublished work, the year it was written. Generally it should consist of four numerals, such as 1984, although the standard styles can handle any year whose last four nonpunctuation characters are numerals, such as "(about 1984)". This field is required for most entry types.

Non-standard fields

BibTeX is extremely popular, and many people have used it to store information in non-standard fields. The information in these non-standard fields may be ignored by BibTeX.

Here is a list of some of the more common non-standard fields ("*" = not directly supported by JabRef):

  • affiliation* The authors affiliation.

  • abstract An abstract of the work.

  • doi The Digital Object Identifier, a permanent identifier given to documents.

  • eid* The Electronic identifier is for electronic journals that also appear in print. This number replaces the page number, and is used to find the article within the printed volume. Sometimes also called citation number.

  • contents* A table of contents

  • copyright* Copyright information.

  • ISBN* The International Standard Book Number.

  • ISSN* The International Standard Serial Number. Used to identify a journal.

  • keywords Key words used for searching or possibly for annotation.

  • language* The language the document is in.

  • location* A location associated with the entry, such as the city in which a conference took place.

  • LCCN* The Library of Congress Control Number. I've also seen this as lib-congress.

  • mrnumber* The number of Mathematical Reviews.

  • price* The price of the document.

  • size* The physical dimensions of a work.

  • URL The WWW Uniform Resource Locator that points to the item being referenced.

JabRef-specific fields

To help in managing your bibliography, and extend the features of BibTeX, JabRef defines some specific fields:

Define your own fields

Hints on fields

  • Generally, you can use LaTeX commands inside of fields containing text. BibTeX will automatically format your reference lists, and those fields that are included in the lists will be (de)capitalized according to your bibliography style. To ensure that certain characters remain capitalized, enclose them in braces, like in the word {B}elgium.

  • An institution name should be inside {} brackets.

    If the institution name also includes its abbreviation, this abbreviation should be also in {} brackets.

    For instance, {The Attributed Graph Grammar System ({AGG})}.

Further information resources

BibTeX files

BibLatex files

Bib(La)TeX files in the JabRef repository

Good references for the BibTex "standard"

BibLaTex standard

BibTeX parser

You can create new fields by .

- long manual explaining the workings of BibTeX, the BibTeX format, and the available entry types with required and optional fields.

(large file > 6000 publications)

SQL database
auto save
string editor
External files
General fields
Owner
Quality and grading
Time stamp
editing (or creating) entry types
Reference documentation about BibTeX
Tame the BeaST - The B to X of BibTxX
BibTeX tips and FAQ
BibTeX format according to Wikibook
BibTeX format according to Wikipedia
https://github.com/lvilnis/BibtexParser/tree/master/inputs
https://github.com/environmentalinformatics-marburg/jabref
http://www.math.uiuc.edu/K-theory/aux/K-theory.bib
http://mirrors.ircam.fr/pub/CTAN/biblio/bibtex/contrib/test/test.bib
http://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/biblatex/bibtex/bib/biblatex/biblatex-examples.bib
http://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pub/mirrors/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/biblatex/bibtex/bib/biblatex/biblatex-examples.bib
https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/tree/master/src/test/resources/testbib
http://texdoc.net/pkg/btxdoc
http://maverick.inria.fr/~Xavier.Decoret/resources/xdkbibtex/bibtex_summary.html
http://ftp.fau.de/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/biblatex/doc/biblatex.pdf
https://github.com/plk/biblatex
https://github.com/ambs/Text-BibTeX
https://github.com/lvilnis/BibtexParser
https://github.com/sciunto-org/python-bibtexparser