[OS X TeX] Practical TeX

[roberto avanzi]

On Oct 25, 2013, at 15:24 , Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:

> Howdy,
> 
> Let's get some nomenclature straight. Both bibtex and biber of bibliography processors; i.e., they take information in the files output during an initial typeset and create a bibliography input file (bbl) using the requested bibliography database(s) (bib). This file is then read back in during a subsequent typeset operation to create the bibliography and another typeset operation is necessary to get the correct references to the bibliography in the text. 
> 
> The biblatex package, by default, creates the necessary files to be processed by biber but can also create the files for bibtex processing. There are other bibliography packages e.g., natbib, that can only create files to be processed by bibtex.

I know, I was VERY imprecise - but it was just to convey the idea - there are various tools and combinations thereof to generate nicely formatted bibliographies - so one cannot cover everything. But the basics of bibtex are important. Thank you for helping dispel confusion that may have been caused by my poor writing.

 Roberto