February 06, 2017

BibTeX Bibliographies Made Easy with Edifix and Overleaf

This month, we are delighted to announce a new partnership with Overleaf, an innovative provider of of scientific writing and publishing tools. Overleaf is best known for its powerful LaTeX authoring and editing tools, which enable authors to create high-quality LaTeX manuscripts with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor. Authors who use BibTeX in their LaTeX projects can easily create their BibTeX bibliography files using Edifix and then upload those files to Overleaf.

The Challenge of Text-to-BibTeX Conversion

BibTeX is a great way to manage references and bibliographies in LaTeX authoring environments. It allows authors and publishers to format bibliographies into a variety of styles with ease and consistency.

However, authors face a common challenge when it comes to BibTeX. Many of us have research materials or reference lists that may not have originated in BibTeX. This creates a problem: text-based, unstructured bibliographies, such as those created in Microsoft Word, must first be converted to BibTeX before they can be used in a LaTeX project.

This is where Edifix steps in. Edifix employs a unique and patented heuristic parsing system to analyze references and create structured data from unstructured, plain text bibliographies. It converts your reference list into a variety of formats, including BibTeX. In addition to converting references to BibTeX format, Edifix can improve your references by correcting them with data obtained automatically from PubMed and Crossref.

Create a .bib File in Edifix

Using Edifix to convert your references to BibTeX is easy:

1. Sign up for an Edifix account and click New Edifix Job
2. Paste your reference list into the Input References Box
3. Select your editorial style and linking options
4. Click Edifix Your References. When Edifix is finished, your corrected references are displayed and ready to be reviewed and exported.
5. To export your Edifixed bibliography to BibTeX format, select "BibTeX" from the Export menu, and then click Export. Your reference list will be exported and saved as a BibTeX .bib file.

Upload Your .bib File to Overleaf

Once you have an Edifixed bibliography saved as a BibTeX file, you are ready to import your bibliography into your Overleaf LaTeX project. To do so:

1. Open the Project pane to manage your project files.
2. Click Files… and select Bibliography.
3. To import your Edifix bibliography, click Upload a .bib file.
4. Drag-and-drop or browse to and select the .bib file you downloaded from Edifix, and then click Open to add the file to your project. You can then view and manage the BibTeX file within Overleaf.

Once your .bib file has been added to your project, you can reference your bibliography using standard LaTeX syntax, for example:

\bibliographystyle{apalike}

\bibliography{JMS-1_edifix_BibTeX.bib}

Sign up for a free Edifix trial and convert your references into BibTeX today!