[OS X TeX] .bib file

Herbert Schulz herbs at wideopenwest.com
Mon Jun 30 17:48:47 EDT 2014


On Jun 30, 2014, at 4:20 PM, Nitecki, Zbigniew H. <Zbigniew.Nitecki at tufts.edu> wrote:

> This is a pretty stupid question, and I am ashamed to have to ask it, but….where do .bib files normally reside?  I have noticed that a book on which I am working has some problems with the formatting of biblio entries, but it has been a while since I worked with the .bib files, and now I have forgotten where to look for them.  Unfortunately the search utility turns up a number of .bib files with the appropriate name, but after changing all of them I still haven't fixed the problem.  So I assume there is a "hidden" version which is really being used, and I need help finding it.
> 
> Zbigniew Nitecki
> Department of Mathematics
> Tufts University
> Medford, MA 02155

Howdy,

I assume you're using a recent TeX Live as installed by the MacTeX installer package. Personal .bib files should be stored in ~/Library/texmf/bibtex/bib (remember that ~/Library is the Library folder in your HOME folder --- assuming you're using OS X 10.7 or later, hold the Opt key down while clicking on the Go menu in Finder and a Library item will appear. Note: this is NOT /Library but ~/Library).

You can also put .bib files in the texmf-local tree which you can get to by opening /Library/TeX/Local (NOTE: here it's /Library, NOT ~/Library) and they reside in bibtex/bib (the same as in your Personal Tree which starts at ~/Library/texmf). The Distribution's bib files are stared in the texmf-dist tree at bibtex/bib.

Note: bibtex will search first in your Personal tree, then in the texmf-local tree and finally in the texmf-dist tree and use the first .bib file with a matching name.

PS: it's actually a bit more complicated but this should help you.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)





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