Re: Biblatex and Org [was: [OT] Don't use BibTeX!]

[tsd@tsdye.com (Thomas S. Dye)]

Aloha Richard,

I think you'll be fine with org-bibtex and biblatex.

Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu> writes:

> So it looks like switching to biblatex is just a matter of changing my
> compilation process and the bibliography commands in my documents.  Does
> that sound right?

Here is a description of using bibtex and biblatex with the old
exporter that should still be useful:

http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-latex-export.html#sec-17

It is easy to switch from one to the other.

We use the Chicago Manual of Style at work and the BibTeX chicago
style. We find that it approximates the Chicago Manual fairly well, but
not completely. A couple of years ago we contemplated moving to
biblatex, which has an extremely competent chicago style, but gave up on
the idea because it would have meant adding information to thousands of
entries in our BibTeX database.  It seemed like a lot of work to meet a
standard that most of our readers don't know or care about.

Where biblatex has helped me the most is writing for history
journals. Biblatex is much better at humanities styles than BibTeX,
which was designed with science publications fairly firmly in mind.
Also, because the biblatex styles are based on LaTeX, rather than
BibTeX's weird style language, it is in my experience relatively easy to
tweak a biblatex style to meet a journal's specification.

In the sciences you'll undoubtedly find journals that accept LaTeX
manuscripts and require that a BibTeX style be used, so I would
recommend against putting all your eggs in the biblatex basket.

All the best,
Tom

-- 
T.S. Dye & Colleagues, Archaeologists
735 Bishop St, Suite 315, Honolulu, HI 96813
Tel: 808-529-0866, Fax: 808-529-0884
http://www.tsdye.com