"Alan E. Davis" <lngn...@gmail.com> writes:
> Is it possible to use org babel to extract bibtex entries from file of
> notes to a *.bib file?
>
Yes, you can use babel's tangling facilities to extract bibtex entries
enclosed in source blocks.
#+begin_src bibtex :tangle history.bib
@InCollection{levi2001_microhistory,
author = {Levi, Giovanni},
title = {On Microhistory},
editor = {Peter Burke},
booktitle = {New Perspectives on Historical Writing},
address = {University Park, PA},
publisher = {Penn State Press},
year = 2001,
}
#+end_src
Calling org-babel-tangle-file will put this entry in the file
history.bib.
> The stumbling point for me in saving bibtex sources is I don't see a
> way to use the file as a bibtex *.bib file so as to use that as the
> direct source for the publication. Perhaps this could be automated
> with babel?
There are a few other routes.
1. Bibtex discards anything outside of an entry so you could symlink
your org file to something with a bib extension (e.g., notes.org ->
notes.bib) and simply point latex/bibtex to that file.
2. You could instruct emacs to edit bib files with orgmode and use babel
and source blocks to enter items
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist
'("\\.\\(org\\|bib\\)$" . org-mode))
3. AFAICT, reftex is blissfully indifferent to non-bibtex data, so you
could use reftex to query your org files for citation keys. Then, you
could use reftex to generate a proper bib file with all entries cited
in your paper.
Best,
Matt
