On Thu, 15 Jun 2006, Bruce Pourciau wrote:
So in BibDesk I could create a master bib file that lists all the references I might use in papers I might write? How though does the list of references (a subset of the master list) get created for a specific paper? From the citations I insert into the text? And does the master bib file have to be in a certain location?
Bruce, It's easy to get confused by the layers here. There are three components involved: a bibliographic database, a .bib file with the references for a particular document, and a .bst bibliographic style file. According to its web site, "BibDesk is a graphical BibTeX-bibliography manager for Mac OS X. BibDesk is designed to help organize and use bibliographic databases in BibTeX .bib format. In addition to manual typing, BibDesk lets you drag & drop or cut & paste .bib files into the bibliographic database and automatically opens files downloaded from PubMed. BibDesk also keeps track of electronic copies of literature on your computer and allows for searching your database through several keys." Other such databases (for x86 and x64) include RefDB, pybiblio, and a bunch of others. That's the first component. You select the files you want and save the references in BibTeX format in a .bib file you name as you wish. That's the second component. Then you select the formatting tool: natbib, jurabib, etc. Each of these allows you to choose the citation style, reference style, and bibliography format (that is, alphabetical order, numeric order, or order of citation in the text). The system is a la carte, not a complete dinner in one package. Rich -- Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | The Environmental Permitting Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.(TM) | Accelerator <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863
