[OS X TeX] Beginner: bibliography strategy?

[Adam R. Maxwell]

On Apr 9, 2005, at 01:43, Rick and Karla Gross wrote:

> Download the fantastic and very stable open source application  
> called BibDesk.   Use it to enter and store your Medline bibtex  
> entries. Bibdesk is a bibliographic database with a great OS X Aqua  
> GUI that to me feels and looks like Endnote (its a heck of a lot  
> more stable than the latest versions of Endnote though).

As a member of the BibDesk development team, this is really nice to  
hear; you can figure that my comments will be biased towards BibDesk,  
though :).

One thing I haven't seen mentioned:  there is a freeware application  
called ReferenceMiner which allows you to search PubMed with an Aqua  
interface, and you can drag-and-drop results from ReferenceMiner  
directly into BibDesk.  BibDesk also supports importing Medline/RIS  
files.

> From there,  if you are using Texshop as your front end you can  
> drag and drop references from Bibdesk into your Texshop document  
> text editor.  Although I can not speak for other OS X Tex  
> applications I can say that TexShop and Bibdesk make for a great  
> and very easy to use combo for generating scientific articles with  
> customized references and graphics.

With BibDesk, you get reference autocompletion in Cocoa applications  
such as iTeXMac, TeXShop, TextEdit, and SubEthaEdit, so if you type a  
partial BibTeX cite key such as \cite{my and  hit option-escape, you  
get a list of matching reference (e.g. \cite{myPaper:2004}) to choose  
from.  As mentioned, we also support drag-and-drop of citations/ 
references in as many places as possible.

As Simon alluded, these cite keys then be processed by BibTeX.  I  
think BBEdit supports the use of Services for autocompletion (see  
BibDesk's online help for details on usage; if the menu isn't grayed  
out, it should work), and Curt Clifton wrote an AppleScript for  
autocompletion using BibDesk->BBEdit, also covered in the online  
help.  Drag-and-drop will work, too, and you can customize your cite  
keys for that.

> Lastly, make sure to install the natbib package as it will allow  
> for complete customization of bibliographic styles in your Tex  
> document.

Agreed; natbib makes BibTeX much more usable.

regards,
Adam

>
>
>> Hi, all,
>>
>> I'm a total beginner in TeX, though I'm able to rudimentary text  
>> editing
>> and getting output to dvi. Good, I'm proud of myself. I'm also new to
>> Macs, even though I've done Windows programming since MS Windows V  
>> 1.04,
>> so I do recognize a computer when I see one.
>>
>> But I need to work with bibliographies. I like the way EndNote  
>> (running
>> the demo) lets me access MedLine directly, then saves the retrieved
>> abstracts and data to its own database. Now I'd like to go from  
>> there to
>> TeX, somehow.
>>
>> My question is not necessarily a step-by-step tutorial (some  
>> things one
>> has to do for one self...), but the general strategies. That is,  
>> assume
>> a Max, with OS X. What bibliography software would you use (free or
>> commercial)? How do I easily get references from there to TeX? (The
>> editor I'm using is BBEdit, by the way).
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> -- Dr. J. Martin Wehlou MD, CISSP
>> www.wehlou.com
>> --------------------- Info ---------------------
>> Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
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>>
>
> --------------------- Info ---------------------
> Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
>           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
> List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>
>
>
>

--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>