What is BibTeX?

BibTeX is an alternative to the following method of creating the bibliography of a document:

\begin{thebibliography}
  \bibitem{cite-key-1} Anritsu. \newblock Whitepaper: Understanding 5G, February 2016.
  \bibitem{cite-key-2} ...
\end{thebibliography}

In Short

• With BibTeX, all references used in a document are stored in a separate file with the .bib extension, the BibTeX bibliography file.
• Each reference in this file has a cite key.
• The .bib file is linked to the LaTeX document.
• In the LaTeX document, citations are made as usual with \cite{cite_key}.
• By default, BibTeX includes only those items of the .bib file in the bibliography that were actually cited in the document.
• BibTeX support comes with standard LaTeX.

How to Create a BibTeX Bibliography File

The bibliography items in a .bib file must be expressed in a certain syntax. However, the best way to create and maintain a .bib file is to use a BibTeX front-end application like BibDesk. In this way, there’s no need to bother with the .bib file syntax.

How to Use BibTeX

To create the bibliography of a document, add the following two lines at the position where the bibliography should be created:

\bibliographystyle{examplestyle}
\bibliography{examplebib}

The first line specifies the bibliography style file containig the styles for the individual bibliography items. This is a file with the extension .bst. In the above example, there must be a file called examplestyle.bst in the same directory as the .tex file (except the referenced style is one of the default styles that ships with the LaTeX distribution).

The second line specifies the .bib file containing the bibliography items, and creates the bibliography. In the above example, there must be a file named examplebib.bib in the same directory as the .tex file.

Compiling a LaTeX document with a BibTeX bibliography

For creating the entire document properly, now the following sequence of runs is necessary:

pdflatex document
bibtex document
pdflatex document
pdflatex document

How to Create a Custom BibTeX Style

There are a range of default style files like plain.bst. These styles can be used without the .bst file being in the same directory, just use e.g. \bibliographystyle{plain}.

To create a custom .bst file, there exists the utility makebst. To start it type:

latex makebst

This creates a .dbj file (or directly the .bst file if the appropriate option is selected). To create the .bst file from the .dbj file, type:

latex examplestyle.dbj

Some custom BibTeX styles that I created can be found here.