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Bibliographic Referencing Software

An overview on using Bibliographic Referencing Software

LaTeX, BibTeX and Overleaf

LaTeX is a free typesetting system for document preparation. It is suitable for formatting mathematical equations, chemical formulas, engineering diagrams, multilingual typesetting, artwork, and spot colour.

LaTeX is usually used with BibTeX for referencing. The details of references are stored in a BibTeX file which can then be linked to a LaTeX document.

Macquarie University Library provides Overleaf Pro+ accounts for all students and staff. Sign up using your MQ email address.

Some benefits of Overleaf are:

  • Easy to use templates
  • Rich text mode helps beginners start quickly
  • Collaborate with others in real time
  • Link to other services such as Zotero, Mendeley, Git and Plot.ly
  • Upload documents directly to publishers.

Referencing with BibTeX

  • BibTeX allows you to store the details of references in a file which can then be linked to a LaTeX document.
  • Instead of BibTex you can also use BibLaTex or Natbib which are more customisable.
  • BibTeX/BibLaTeX/Natbib files usually end in .bib. They can be edited with any plain text editor or a program such as Overleaf.
  • Each reference entry in the .bib file begins with the reference type, in the form of @type followed by a left curly brace and a citation key, then all the reference details and a right curly brace to close.
  • The citation key is a short name for the reference that you can make up, e.g. for a paper written by Smith in 2015 you might choose Smith2015.
  • To cite a reference within your LaTex file, use the command \cite{citationkey}, e.g. for the example above, \cite{Smith2015}
  • If using an author-date citation style such as apa, use the commands \citet{citationkey} for author in the text and year in the parentheses, or \citep{citationkey} for both author and year within the parentheses,

Linking the bib file to your LaTeX document

For the citations in your .tex file to work, you also need some commands in the preamble and end of your document. These will link it to your .bib file, set the referencing style and produce a bibliography.

The commands are are as follows, depending whether you're using BibTex, Natbib or BibLaTex. Note that in these examples, the bib file has been named references.bib and the referencing style used is IEEE.

  BibTex Natbib BibLaTex
Commands for preamble \bibliographystyle{ieeetr}

\usepackage[numbers]{natbib}

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtranN}

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

\addbibresource{references.bib}
Command for bibliography \bibliography{references} \bibliography{references} \printbibliography

For information on the differences between BibTex, NatBib and BibLaTex, see here.

Overleaf and LaTeX help

Referencing tools and BibTeX

A BibTeX file can be exported from Zotero, Mendeley, or Endnote and used with your LaTeX document. However, using this 'manual' method, you must replace the file every time you add new references and want to cite them.

For full integration with BibTeX, there are plugins for Zotero and Mendeley which automatically update your BibTeX file whenever you add a new reference to your Zotero/Mendeley library. 

If using Overleaf, set up the integration following these instructions:

Note that in both Mendeley and Zotero, the integration will link your entire library by default. To keep a separate set of references for your project, you can set up a Group and link that. However, the integration does not support linking of specific folders within a group (only the whole group).