Comments on: Multiple bibliographies in LaTeX

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 04:58:55 +0000

Sorry, I can't give you a simple answer, as I don't use a makefile. There are a number of LaTeX makefiles out there but for some reason it seems to be too hard for them to allow for bibtex (e.g. see here). I don't understand why, maybe it's the need to be generic. I think if you defined the bibtex command so that instead of running once for the default bibliography, it runs once for each of your bibliographies that would do it, e.g. instead of BIBTEX = bibtex use BIBTEX = bibtex primary; bibtex secondary. Maybe.

By: Rahul

Rahul — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:39:54 +0000

How does one write a makefile to use multibib ??

By: Secondary citation « Abner’s Postgraduate Days

Secondary citation « Abner’s Postgraduate Days — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 20:27:53 +0000

[...] LaTeX: Airminded · Multiple bibliographies in LaTeX [...]

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 07:02:55 +0000

Thanks for the note. TeX has weathered surprisingly well for such an old piece of software (it was started over 30 years ago). But only 16 files? I didn't think anything could still count that low.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:40:56 +0000

I obtained good results with multibib but due to the particulars of my document (technical software users manual with a glossary, multiple indices, etc.) I exceeded LaTeX's internal file limit. My solution was to switch to splitbib. There's a little more overhead in that I have to manually categorize my references, but that was minor compared to bringing document compilation to a screeching halt after unwittingly running the system out of internal files. I don't have a strong opinion either way - multibib and splitbib address the same issue in different ways and they each have their pros and cons. I just wanted to note that multibib may cause problems if your document makes heavy use of internal files. The underlying issue is that TeX is a victim of its own success; it's easy to extend its functionality with packages and thereby run the system out of files, even without creating an obviously pathological document. Apparently the limitation on the number of internal files (currently 16) is to be addressed in an upcoming release. That's good news, but nothing that could help me in the near term.

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:20:34 +0000

Peter, I addressed that in an earlier comment.

By: peter

peter — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:35:42 +0000

ummm...
it's all very well
how to do thia dn that and what not
but can come one please explain where to place what files?!?

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:28:20 +0000

If I understand this correctly, you're using both the normal bibliography and a multibib bibliography (called publi). uschold97 is in the first one and dutot07 is in the second. I suspect that when you compile with bibtex, you are just doing it the normal way and so it is not compiling the publi bibliography. But with multibib you need to do bibtex on each bibliography. E.g., from the command line you would need to run 'bibtex publi' as well.

Hope this helps!

By: Fahem

Fahem — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:24:01 +0000

Hi, i have a problem with multibib. This my sample:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{multibib}

\newcites{publi}{Publications}

\begin{document}
blalalalalal \cite{uschold96}
blalalalallala \citepubli{dutot07}.

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{These}

\renewcommand{\refname}{Publications}
\bibliographystylepubli{plain}
\bibliographypubli{These}

\end{document}

But only the first reference (uschold96) appears. The compilator can't find the second citation. i d'ont konw why.
Than you for your help!

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:57:35 +0000

OK, there's a few problems here. 1. 'bibtex: command not found' tells me that bibtex is not in your path (i.e a list of directories that it searches for commands). On my system bibtex is in /usr/texbin, and it seems to have been set up automatically when I installed MacTeX -- it will depend on what distribution you are using. If you're using MacTeX too, you could always type /usr/texbin/bibtex instead of just bibtex. 2. You wouldn't use 'bibtex workingpaper.tex' because bibtex can't understand the tex file. Instead, you'd do 'bibtex workingpaper.aux' or, even easier, just 'bibtex workingpaper'. 3. Finally, with natbib, you don't actually use the name of the document (as you would normally do with bibtex), but the name of the different bibliographies. I.e., the names you have used in the \newcites command. So in my example in this post, I have \newcites{pri}{Primary sources} \newcites{sec}{Secondary sources} So I would then do 'bibtex pri' and 'bibtex sec', and not use the filename at all. Good luck ...