This guide provides a brief overview of managing references in LaTeX using BibTeX. Follow the instructions to integrate BibTeX into your LaTeX documents, allowing you to cite sources and generate bibliographies. This guide was copied and adapted with permission from the Imperial College London Library.
LaTeX is a typesetting system widely used by scientists and engineers. It is often used as an alternative to Microsoft Word due to its ability to handle complex mathematical formulas and produce high-quality documents.
BibTeX is a reference management tool that works with LaTeX, allowing you to store reference details in separate files that can be linked to your LaTeX documents. In this way, references can be re-used in many documents. It enables you to “write and cite” in a LaTeX document, automatically generating a reference list based on the citations within the document.
It is possible to create BibTeX files automatically, either through data capture from many search tools or by exporting references from reference management software such as RefWorks, Zotero or Mendeley.
Bibtex4Word is an add-in for Microsoft Word that allows the citation of references and the insertion of a bibliography into your document using your choice of formatting style. Imperial College London has a step-by-step guide on installation and user guide on BibTeX in Word!
BibDesk is an open-source reference management software package free for macOS! It can be used to manage bibliographies and references when writing essays and articles, and to organize and maintain a library of documents in PDF format and other formats!