[OS X TeX] Who is using biblatex?

[Alan T Litchfield]

On 30/11/2010, at 5:14 PM, Simon Spiegel wrote:

>
> He is reading this. ;)
>
> I've been using biblatex since about version 0.3 and I've just  
> finished my second book which makes heavy use of it. To make this  
> short: As long as there isn't a very specific reason why you have to  
> use traditional bibtex, switch to biblatex – the sooner the better.  
> Biblatex is so much more capable than traditional bibtex, there's  
> really little reason not to use it. It's not only the additional  
> fields, it's also the fact that everyone with average knowledge of  
> LaTeX can easily adapt his own style (something which has been  
> almost impossible with traditional bibtex) and that many of the  
> traditional limitations of bibtex simply don't exist anymore with  
> biblatex. Also, biblatex's manual is simply superb.
>
> As for sound and film references: It does of course depend on your  
> needs whether the available styles are good enough for you. But even  
> if they're not, the big plus of biblatex is that you can easily  
> adapt an existing style to your specific needs (I can send you my  
> style, but since it's heavily geared toward German speaking  
> academia, it might be of little use for you).
>
> Also, if you use biblatex, it's better not to use bibtex (the  
> program) or bibtex8 respectively, but biber to do the sorting. It  
> handles UTF8, doesn't know the memory limitations of bibtex and is  
> the way biblatex will go in the future. A ready-to-use binary for  
> OSX can be downloaded here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/biblatex-biber/files/biblatex-biber/current/binaries/OSX_Intel/biber.tar.gz/download
>
>

That is very good news on the one hand but on the other, not so good.

On the one hand I have been plagued with the UTF8 limitations of  
bibtex, that is true, and biblatex fits the bill with what I need,  
plus much more it seems.

On the other, I checked out biber but there is only an intel version.  
No powerpc version and it doesn't seem to want to compile on the G5  
without more effort than I am prepared to give it at this time. While  
I do have an intel macbook pro I am doing most work on either of my  
powerpc's. That means I will be looking at bibtex8.

Regards
Alan