JabRef is one of the best reference managers available and provides a realistic alternative to Endnote, as well as being open-source & free. Unfortunately most users are not aware that JabRef (or any other BibTeX based reference manager) can easily be integrated for use with Microsoft Word. In this guide I will show you step-by-step how to install Mike Brookes‘ excellent free Bibtex4Word (v1.12) Word Macro Package on your Windows XP machine.
This post is for an old version of the BibTeX4Word Macro. The newest version can be found here on Mike Brookes’ site, along with excellent documentation.
These instructions assume that you are already familiar with JabRef and have a copy installed on your computer. If you wish you can download JabRef from here. I will cover how to use JabRef in a forthcoming guide.
1. Download MiKTeX
MiKTex is a LaTeX typesetting environment , you don’t need to be too concerned about the details of this, essentially MiKTeX contains BibTeX the ‘engine’ that is used for to generate the different referencing styles that you will now be able to call on to be able to submit to various journals eg. Harvard, Vancouver, Nature etc.
The link to MikTeX is here (and will open in a new window) You need to download and install the basic version, don’t worry about installing all the packages, you don’t need them.
2. Relocate your JabRef data File
Unfortunately BibTeX does not support filenames with spaces in them, if you have spaces in your path to your JabRef file you must relocate your data file to a directory without. My Bibliography file is called “bib.bib” and was located in “My Documents” which contains a space so I relocated it to a new folder “c:\References\bib.bib” Make a note of your location.
3.Set your Path
The macro requires that it can access the BibTeX package from the default path. The simplest way to set this is to go to
Start>>Settings>>Control Panel>> System>>Advanced>>Enviromental Variables>>System Variables
here you need to edit the “Path” entry by adding the path of the BibTeX executable, failure to do so will cause an “Error 53″ The path to my BibTeX executable is
C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.5\miktex\bin
Yours should be similar if you followed the default installation. If you are having problems use the Windows search feature to look for “Bibtex.exe”. Remember each entry on the path should be seperated by semi-colons for example my path is:-
d:\WINDOWS\system32;D:\WINDOWS;D:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.5\miktex\bin;
4. Make Word Startup Folder Visible
By defaut on your machine you may have to make your Word startup folder visible, you can do this by going to Windows Explorer and selecting:-
Tools>>Folder Options>>Hidden files and folders>>Show hidden files and folders & Display the contents of system folders.
If you prefer not to see your system and hidden folders you can reverse this once complete.
5.Download the Macro
This can be found on Mike Brookes’ site here. Right click this link and use the “Save target as” or “Save Link as” option. You need to save it in your MS Word Startup folder which can be found at:-
C:\Documents and Settings\James\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP
of course you will have substitute your username for mine, and possibly change the drive letter according to the setup of your machine. If you want this macro to be available to more than one user you will have to do this for each user. There is no need to change the MS Word security settings to enable this macro to work correctly.
6. Load Microsoft Word
Hopefully you will see this new toolbar. First you need to let the BibTeX4Word macro know where you keep your bibliography data file. You do this by clicking on the last but one icon (the open folder) and then finding the bibliography file which you made a note of earlier.
7.Start Citing
To add a citation position the cursor at the point you wish to insert the citation and click the [+] button, you can either type the BibTeX key directly eg “Davies2003″ or search for author’s papers from your bibliography by the surname by prefixing with A: eg “A:Davies”. You can cite more than one paper by just separating the keys by commas.
8.Creating your Bibliography List
When you are ready to create your bibliography, simply place your cursor where you wish it to appear and click the second icon from the left on the BibTex4Word toolbar. This will produce the bibliography and automatically change the bibliography keys to reference numbers. You can flip between the two with the [eye] key on the toolbar.
9.Changing the Citation Styles
This can be done by clicking the paintbrush logo. To find out what styles are available from your MikTeX installation you can search the BibTeX folder for style files which have the *.bst extension, or create your own as described in Mark’s recent article
Example Citation Styles
A selection of the more popular styles (Plain, Vancouver, AuthorDate and it’s variations) can be found in this pdf or this MS Word file.
Adding more Styles to BibTeX
If you installed the Basic MiKTeX package you will only have a small selection of styles. Not all BibTeX styles work well with the BibTeX4Word Macro, but most do. To add more go to
Start>>Programs>>MiKTeX 2.5>>MiKTeX Package Manger
Here you need to select all of the Category entitled “\BibTeX\BibTeX packages” then right click and select Install, and the latest versions will be downloaded and installed on your computer.
Customising Your Bibliography
You can format your bibliography directly, for example making citation numbers appear as subscript. If you wish you can change the citation brackets from square to round brackets, this is done using MS Word’s search and replace, though this is best left until you have finished your paper or thesis.
103 responses so far ↓
1 Mark // Mar 26, 2007 at 7:27 am
This looks great. I didn’t realise this kind of thing existed, but as an alternative to Endnote (which appears to be badly broken on both Windows and Mac OS X, especially with large bibliographies) it is worth considering!
There are other reference managers available, but JabRef is cross-platform and so works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
2 Thanks for the instructions, but I´ve hit a wall // Apr 17, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Hi!
Thanks for making these instructions available! I really can´t afford to pay for Endnote (300 U$ is a lot of money in Chile).
Unfortunately, I´ve hit a wall.
Step4. I can´t find the correct position to download bibtexword.doc (which is what gets downloaded from the link you quote).
C :\Documents and Settings\Alejandro\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP
does not exist, instead, I come to a choice of
C:\Documents and Settings\Alejandro\
-cookies, -desk, -favorites, -start menu (menu de inicio), my documents, User Data (with empty folders).
I´ve downloaded bibtexword.doc to every single
subfolder of “start menu” ad got no results. (Yes, I did download directly, not just copy-paste and I did erase each new file as they proved useless).
If you have a minute, please lend me a hand.
Best regards
Alejandro Roth
3 Mander // Apr 18, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Alejandro-
“Application Data” is normally a hidden folder, I believe. In Windows Explorer, go to Tools–> Folder Options, click the View tab, and select “Show hidden files and folders” option, then hit apply. You should be able to see the folder then.
James–Thanks for this guide!
4 Pierre // Apr 19, 2007 at 9:58 am
First, a great thanks for both guides on LaTeX styles & integration with MSword.
Unfortunately, i ran into problems while using natbib styles with the bibtex4word macro : cited labels (in the text & just before each reference entry) differs from the output they really have under LaTeX (on a unix OS).
Does somebody have clues to resolve this problem ? I don’t know where to start : bibtex4word macro, OS localisation or latex distribution problem…
Regards,
5 Pierre // Apr 19, 2007 at 12:26 pm
OK, just answering to myself : the problem was that i used /cite{p,t}{key} in the .tex file… which gave me correct output when compiling but different from what i hoped in MSword.
So, if someone know how to make bibtex4word use personalised citing commands, it would be wonderful !
Thanks for reading,
Pierre
6 James // Apr 22, 2007 at 12:19 pm
If you are having problems setting up the PATH variable which may occur with some LOCALES then you can set it from the command line by downloading the SETX utility from MS here
At the command prompt type:-
setx path "%PATH%";C:\Archivos de programa\MiKTeX 2.5\miktex\bin
to set up the PATH variable..you will need to modify the “C:\Archivos de programa” section to match the path of your program files..
Pierre, It is possible to customise the citation style to some extent, I do not know how to accomplish all of Natbib’s functionality, but you can change from AuthorDate type of citations to plain numeric, an example of some citation styles that work can be found in the PDF above.
7 Nunzio // May 9, 2007 at 5:49 am
I used in BibTex4Word the ‘plainnat’ style in order to have the output in Natbib format without success. Many Springer Journal adopt the Natbib style.
Do someone know the solution with BibTex4Word ?
Thanks for reading,
Nunzio
8 James // May 9, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I am afraid the plainnat style doesn’t work well with bibtex4word, but if you want an author-date type style (see here) you could use one of the authordate styles and edit out the square brackets.
9 winnie // May 11, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Hi James,
seems, this is the perfect way to use JabRef with Microsof Word. I installed the Bibtex4Word key last night and linked it with my library. I got the the six icons in Word and I can insert the authors in the place where I want it. However, the step of creating the bibliography makes some troubles. I followed the steps on the website, clicked with the left cursor where I wanted the bibliography link to appear and than clicked the second icon on the left. But nothing happens. Did i miss a step in between? Looking forward to your response.
Best regards, Winnie
10 James // May 11, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Winnie
When you insert the Authors does it find the correct Authors from your JabRef database eg. If you search for Author Jones “A:Jones” does it find them? Do you get any error messages at all?
11 winnie // May 12, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Hi James,
yes, it finds the correct author from the bib file and inserts it in the right position, so step 7 works. However, step 8 does not work. Do you have any ideas?
12 winnie // May 12, 2007 at 12:32 pm
James, don’t know if it is important but I am using Miktex 2.6 and Jabref 2.2.
The icon (second from the left) changes to orange color when clicking on it the first time, and stays orange until I close word.
Thanks for your help
13 James // May 12, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Winnie,
You could try checking your macro security settings, but I doubt it is that..so I am afraid I can’t think of a solution. Sorry..
James.
14 Tino // May 16, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Hi James,
Bibtex4Word has really been an answer to my prayers. I love that I can now use my rather extensive .bib file for citing things in word. I just have one question: I’ve noticed that if I have things in subscript (e.g. $_text$) or greek letters (e.g. $\alpha$) in my .bib file they are not formatted/translatted in Word. Is there a work around for this, other than formatting the bibliography by hand?
Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
-Tino
15 James // May 18, 2007 at 9:10 am
Tino
I can’t think of a way around the subscript issue. There is a way to work around the single latex characters. If you edit the macro by loading the bibtex4word.dot file then going to Tools>>Macro>>Edit find the file that contains this section:-
' multi character latex command
cmd = LCase(Mid(textline, lfindex + 2, i - lfindex - 2))
If logging Then
Print #2, "latex command:" & cmd
End If
Select Case
Case "AE"
i = i - 1
Mid(textline, i, 1) = "Æ"
This section of the macro appears to replace latex commands with symbols. To add alpha as a supported character add the following entry
Case "alpha"
i = i - 1
Mid(textline, i, 1) = ChrW(945)
The “alpha” bit refers to the latex command without the “\”, so you could do this for \beta \Beta etc.. ChrW(945) refers to the unicode for that symbol (in decimal rather than HEX). I don’t think this will work in the maths enviroment (eg $\alpha$) as the $ is printed verbatim. If I ever get competent at VBA I will try and look at the subscript problem, the other option would be to approach Mike Brookes (The Author of the macro)
James
16 Jennifer // Jun 5, 2007 at 8:32 am
Hi James,
Thanks for the instructions on this webpage!
The journal that I am submitting my paper to requires the references in order of citation and the references to be given as
Whitby DJ, Ferguson MW. Title of paper. Dev Biol 1991; 147:207-15.
Do you know the right bibtex style to use with Bibtex4word for this style of referencing, while keeping them in order of citation?
Thanks,
Jennifer
17 James // Jun 6, 2007 at 10:37 am
Jennifer
Try the Vancouver style.
Regards
James
18 Frederik // Jun 27, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Hi,
I’ve got the same problem as winnie. I took the brave step to try bibtex4word in Word2007. Everything seemed to work perfectly, but it doesn’t want to add the reference list. When I click the second item, nothing happens. It stays highlighted as winnie already said. When I click it again (I’m very unpatient with computers) it gives an error 55: documen is already open (or something similar). I’ve tried changing macro security settings but it doesn’t help.
Any suggestions are welcome!
Regards,
Frederik
19 James // Jun 27, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Frederik ,
I’m sorry but I have looked through the source code and I can’t even find a reference to error 55, suggesting the error is generated by the system in response to the macro; rather than the macro itself.
Regards
James
20 Frederik // Jun 28, 2007 at 6:28 pm
James,
thanks for the fast reply. You’re right about the system generated error. I checked the help of Word and found that error 55 occurs if a file that is already open, is opened again. So apparently clicking the button, opens some file which can’t be opened twice. It’s just a shame that opening that mysterious file doesn’t result in a nice reference list…
It looks like I’ll have to maintain two reference programs…
Regards,
Frederik
21 James // Jul 5, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Frederik,
This error may be the result of using Word 2007 with the Macro, have you tried it in Word 2003?
James
22 Thomas // Jul 18, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Hi,
first a great thanks for the bibtex4word macro!
But unfortunately I have some problems with the macro. Install was successful, the macro is included in Word and I can use it, after I changed the macro security to “middle” (maybe it’s important).
But when I try to insert a citation by the plus button it doesn’t function. For example exists a bibtex-key (and all necessary entries in JabRef too) in my database “Koike:2002″. If I enter this in the dialog the error message “no matches found for koike:2002″ appears. Strangely, if I just enter “A:koike”, the same message appears, with the additional information 2002. So the makro seems to find something on the database. But what? And why “no matches”. What did I wrong?
Best regards,
Thomas
23 James // Jul 18, 2007 at 3:12 pm
*****Read this first*****
Since I made the entry below I read the updated documentation that accompanies Mike Brooke’s Macro which can be found here. There is a much easier way to achieve what the text below suggests by simply setting the enivorment variable eg. BIBSTYLE=plainnat/ndu!$ Please check out his comprehensive documentation.
*****Read this first*****
Thomas
Firstly the credit for the Macro should go to the Author Mike Brookes.
I am afraid I think you have found a bug, that relates to how you have named your bibtex keys.
The Macro uses the ‘:’ to allow searches for authors to be done, for example A:MedicalNerd would search for the author MedicalNerd. So effectively the macro doesn’t treat your key ‘Koike:2002″ as a key, but as a command.
Luckily the Macro is easy to follow so to fix this you can change the way the macro handles the “:” and use something else instead…
Const MagicDefault As String = ":/" ' Default magic chars for search and flags
Steps 1-3 were needed on my machine as you can’t edit the macro by default. You can now search for Authors using A!MedicalNerds and cite correctly using MedicalNerd:2006
James
24 Lars // Jul 18, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Hi,
nice guide! Just what I was looking for.
I do run into a problem though - the same as Winnie (no error message as by Frederik). I suspect that I make an error in step 3 in setting the path, as that was the most tricky part. The other steps are straigh forward. In step 3 you write “Remember to precede this new entry with a semicolon.” I don’t know what you mean by that.
Also, I tried to download the SETX utility, but the link provided is not valid.
I use Word2003.
Thanks, Lars
25 James // Jul 18, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Lars,
I have tried to simplify step 3, see above.
To check you have the path set correctly go to Start>Run>Command to go to the command prompt. If you type bibtex then it should respond “Need exactly one file argument” rather ” ‘BibTex’ is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.”
Please feedback how you get on
James
26 Thomas // Jul 19, 2007 at 5:47 am
Hi James,
thanks a lot for your help. It works now!!! I’m happy about this great tool. It saves so much time…
Thomas
27 Lars // Jul 19, 2007 at 6:40 am
Hi James,
thanks for your suggestion. When I write “bibtex” in the Command window, I get the answer “Please type input file name (no extension)–”, which is essentially the same as you said it must be when the path is set correct. I also tested it entering some jibberish, getting the expected negative answer.
So, it is not the path that is set wrong. Macro security level “Low” does not solve the problem either. Neither does restarting the computer or creating a new Word document. The references are found just well, the bibliography is just not created at all.
Btw, regarding the use of “;” in Step 3, there seems to be slight differences in the GUIs from my version of Windows to yours in the way paths are set. I must write them one by one - no multiple intries possible and thus no use for the “;”.
Any further ideas? Anything I should test?
Thanks,
Lars
28 James // Jul 19, 2007 at 11:17 am
Lars,
I am afraid I am out of ideas, why don’t you ask Mike Brookes? Let me know how you get on..
James
29 Thomas // Jul 19, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Hi,
is there a possibility to enter more than one reference in every paragraph? Or much better in every sentence? For example:
“Some reference for argument one [1, 4, 5], but also for a further advantage [2, 3, 6, 7].”
If I try to enter the second reference field by the plus-icon, its automatically jumps to the previous one, highlights these entries and I just can edit this reference block. The some effect appears not only inside the same sentence but also inside the same paragraph. Only the seperation of the arguments by an offers the possibility to insert a new block of references.
Has someone made the same experience? Thanks for all help,
Thomas
30 James // Jul 19, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Thomas,
With my version of BibTeX4Word and MS Word 2003 I can do this. I have an example here. Why don’t you send me an example and I will have a look.
Regards
James
31 Mike // Jul 20, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Thomas,
The “one citation per paragraph” problem was a bug that existed briefly and is fixed in the current version (V1.49).
Mike
32 James // Jul 20, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Mike,
Thanks for the help and the great macro.
Regards
James
33 Pierre // Jul 23, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Hi,
I’d like to thank Mike Brookes a lot for updating his great software, the new “style flags” are very useful. I have 2 questions remaining :
- In some of biological journals, there aren’t any labels before each entry in the bibliography section : is there a way to achieve this using bibtex4word ? Is it a bibtex style-only problem ?
- how to suppress url or doi information in the bibliography section ? Some of the bst styles i found (apalike, for example) hide this information, but their formatting doesn’t suit my needs.
Thanks for reading,
Regards,
Pierre
34 Thomas // Jul 23, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Hi Mike,
thank you for your tip and for your great makro. I used v1.48. After downloading 1.49 my problem is solved!
Best regards,
Thomas
35 James // Jul 23, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Pierre,
To remove the numbering and change the display of hyperlinks you could create your own style See here.
James
36 Pierre // Jul 24, 2007 at 1:28 pm
James,
Thanks for closely following this thread !
I hoped to get over this problem without having to dive into custom BibTeX styles creation… but ok, i’ll watch this 74 step process :°)
37 Oliver // Jul 29, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Hi James,
Firstly thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge, which is really appreciated by folks like me who don’t have the time/expertise to figure this out.
I have a slight problem in the fact that I can’t download/save the macro from the link you provide in section 4. I get an error message saying that it can’t connect to the server. I’ve tried to reduce the security of my internet browser but to no avail. Is there something else I should be doing?
Thanks in advance,
Oliver
38 James // Jul 29, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Oliver,
I think the site (www.ee.ic.ac.uk) is temporarily down as I can’t access it from my machine, try later.
James
39 Oliver // Jul 29, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Hi James,
Ok thanks for the reply.
oliver
40 Liutas // Aug 1, 2007 at 3:10 am
I am afraid I have the same problem as Winnie and Fredrik.
Everything is OK with paths, bibtex is found, and .bib file is found (I am using MikTeX2.5). I have no problems using bibtex with my LaTeX editor on the same computer, even the same bib file. But I really need this functionallity in MSWord.
So, in Word2003 I see the toolbar, I can add references, everything is nice until I press the “Insert/Update bibliography” button. The button stays in its pressed state, and the computers fan becomes noisy! I have to close the MSWord (without any error message) to stop the fan.
I tried putting the bib file to a directory with no spaces, tried changing the bibtex keys (they look as “author2000″) but the problem persists. Any ideas?..
41 James // Aug 1, 2007 at 7:09 am
Liutas,
I’m afraid I can’t reproduce the error, and do not how to solve it.
Regards
James
42 chan // Aug 11, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Hi, James,
I just started to learn Jabref with word by following your instruction and ran into problem in step 6. I could not see the toolbar after my word files were opened in word and did not know how to sort it out.
It would be grateful if you could tell me how to deal with this.
Many thanks and best wishes,
Chan
43 James // Aug 11, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Chan
Two things you should check:-
1.Go to your STARTUP folder which will look something like
C:\Documents and Settings\James\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP
and confirm the BibTex4Word.DOT file is present there. (There will be subtle differences that reflect your username, installation and locale.)
2. Re-open MS Word and navigate to
Menu>>View>>Toolbars
and ensure the BibTeX4Word Macro option is checked.
Regards
James
44 chan // Aug 11, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Hi, James,
Thank you so much for your quick reply. I did checked the first thing you suggested me to do before I wrote to you and the BibTex4Word was there. Just now I have checked the second point you suggested me to do. Now I can only get a small square toolbar on my word file which could not display anything. I tried to enlarge this guy but it did not work. Is there anything else I should do to figure it out?
Many thanks for your help.
Chan
45 James // Aug 11, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Chan,
I am afraid I can’t suggest anything else.
Sorry
James
46 Sonja // Aug 20, 2007 at 9:54 am
Hello,
is it possible to add the page reference, as follows:
[3, pp. 93 ff.] or in alpha [By07, pp. 93 ff.]
I tried [p.93 ff, bibtexKey] or [,bibtexKey, p.93 ff] but after “toggle citation display” it is changed again.
Any idea?
Thanks in advance
Sonja
47 James // Aug 20, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Sonja,
I’m sorry I don’t understand the question… are your bibtex keys “3″,”ff” and “07″… and does p.93 ff refer to the page number.
Regards
James
48 Sonja // Aug 27, 2007 at 8:16 am
Sorry,
yes “pp. 93 ff.” refers to the page number. “[3″ and “[By07″ refers to the literature with different citation styles. Since I ask for the declaration of the page number in the cite.
Thanks in advance
Sonja
49 Mike // Aug 29, 2007 at 7:00 am
Sonja,
If you use the “[” style flag then a citation will appear as “3″ without any surrounding brackets. You can have additional text either side of the citation number and the macro will not disturb it: e.g. “[ 3, pp. 93 ff.]” . At the moment you need to have a space after the “[” in this example to prevent it disappearing after an update. Does this do what you want?
Mike
50 Sonja // Aug 29, 2007 at 11:57 am
Thank you for your help. This was my question.
I hope a better solution will come. The cite is at the end of the line since it looks like that:
[
3, pp.93 ff ]
Regards,
Sonja
51 Katrina // Aug 30, 2007 at 1:33 pm
The BibText4Word toolbar is not showing up when I run Word. I’ve double checked the startup folder (it’s there, but cannot be opened) and I’ve done Menu>>View>>Toolbars and BibText is not listed at all. I am running Word 2003. Any hints? (My IT fiancee can’t figure it out either).
52 James // Aug 30, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Katrina,
Just to clarify. There is a copy of the BibTeX4Word macro (.dot not .doc) file in your “Startup” folder, you have restarted Word but when you look for the toolbar it is not there. Try 2 things:-
1. Go to Tools->Macro->Macros …are the BibTex4Word Macros displayed here? If not then the Macro file hasn’t been loaded…you could try putting the file in the “All Users” instead.
eg C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP
2.Try lowering your Macro security settings, though I find it works fine on “Very High”.
Otherwise I am afraid I am out of ideas, if you manage to fix it please post how you managed.
Regards
James
53 Per // Aug 31, 2007 at 6:45 am
I have tried to download bibtex4word.dot since yesterday but cannot access the server. Any alternative suggestions, thanks
54 James // Aug 31, 2007 at 7:24 am
Per,
Imperial’s Department of Electronic Engineering server was down for a while but is now back up.
Regards
James
55 Per // Sep 3, 2007 at 9:19 am
Thanks, James I have now received the files from Mike Brookes. However, I have repeatedly tried to download natbib using MikTex package manager but invariably get the message that couldn’t connect to server. Any idea why this does not work?
56 Katrina // Sep 7, 2007 at 9:24 pm
We figured it out. I had failed to remove the spaces from some of the files that led to the end point for the download. Once that was fixed, it worked just fine.
57 Mike // Sep 9, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I have never been able to reproduce the “stuck in an infinite loop” problem that several people have experienced (e.g. Winnie, Frederik, Liutas) . However, I think there is a good chance that this is now fixed in V1.54 which also adds a new option to make the citations into hyperlinks.
58 Liutas // Sep 10, 2007 at 1:10 am
Mike,
Thanks for the new version! The infinite loop problem is gone (at least, on my system), I can generate bibliography, hurray!
59 Elliot // Sep 14, 2007 at 7:05 pm
When I open Word I get an error message:
word cannot open this document template.
(C\…\STARTUP.bibtex4word.dot)
Thanks for the help
60 James // Sep 17, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Elliot,
I am afraid I can’t explain why that is occuring. Can you load the template if you simply double click on it? If not then delete it and download it again.
Please reply with the solution if you get it fixed.
Kind Regards
James
61 Seb // Sep 19, 2007 at 8:42 am
Hello,
I had a little problem.
When I would like to format my bibliography (second button from left), I obtain this message error :
“Missing Bibtex log file: C:\documents and settings\user\local settings\temp\bibtex4word.blg”
I’ve tried to trash these files, but I obtained the same message error.
What could be the solution ?
Best regards,
Seb
62 James // Sep 19, 2007 at 8:58 am
Seb,
Is the file bibtex4word.blg actually present in the directory in which the Macro reports it cannot find it? If it is not then I would check that BibTeX is working correctly (Path set correctly, can be called from the command prompt etc), as I think bibtex4word.blg is the first BibTeX file that is read by the Macro that is produced by the BibTeX helper files.
Kind Regards
James
63 Seb // Sep 19, 2007 at 11:17 am
Hello James,
As a Mac User, I have not the habit to use a PC, so probably I made a misstake with the path settings.
In environment variables>system variables, I’ve created a new variable.
I’ve put “BibTex.exe” in “Variable name” and “C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.5\miktex\bin” in “Variable value”.
Is it correct ?
Best,
Seb
64 Seb // Sep 19, 2007 at 12:21 pm
I have the solution finally (I hope !) : I’ve just remove MikTex 2.5 and install Miktex 2.6 !
Best,
Seb
65 James // Sep 19, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Seb,
The Variable name should be “Path” and the Variable value should be
...;C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.6\miktex\binwhere … is whatever is currently in the variable value. (Probably something like “C:\Windows\System32;c:\perl”)
Regards
James
66 Marcelo Maia // Sep 26, 2007 at 1:19 pm
A Question and Answer: Hope this helps someone.
Q: I’ve installed bibtex4word.dot in the right place and reinitialized Word but the toolbar does not appear. When I open bibtex4word.dot the toolboor appears but just for that file. WHY?
A: I don’t why. But when I reinitialized the computer, the toolbar had appeared ok. I wasted an hour to do this simple fix.
67 Binh // Oct 8, 2007 at 11:58 am
Hi,
I have installed Bibtex4word.dot v1.54 and use JabRef v2.3b2. I have problems with step 7, inserting citations. Like in message #22, if I enter “A:Toubia” in the dialog the error message “no matches found for a:toubia” appears. So, I follow the steps in message#23, but get stuck at step 4. There are a lot of macros in the list, which one do I have to edit? (I’ve never use macros before). Is there any other solution?
Cheers,
Binh
68 James // Oct 8, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Binh,
Can I just clarify something,…Do you store your bibtex keys in the format “Toubia:2003″ if so you need to let the Macro know that you use the “:” in a bibtex key and suggest a different one for use with searches. For example if you use the colon (”:”) in your key do the following:-
Go to :-
Control Panel->System->Advanced ->Environmental Variables-->User Variables
Add a variable “BIBSTYLE” with the value being
alpha/n +/
This will let the Macro know that you want to use alpha as your default style and that you want to use the “+” as your magic character rather than the “:” character . To search for the Author “Smith” type “A+smith”.
Regards
James
69 Binh // Oct 9, 2007 at 11:06 am
Hi James,
I store the Bibtexkey in the format Toubia2006. I use the autogenerate in JabRef to generate the Bibtex key. Do I still need to add the variable BIBSTYLE? Sorry, for my silly question, I’m a newby.
Cheers,
Binh
70 James // Oct 9, 2007 at 11:35 am
If you bibtex key does not contain the “:” character then there is no need to make the BIBSTYLE entry as detailled above, there must be another reason why it can’t find that the Toubia2006 entry. Can you find any of the other BibTeX keys?
James
71 Binh // Oct 9, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Hi James,
I can’t find any BibTex keys. I try to find BibTex keys with another database I’ve created in JabRef. The results are the same, no matches are found by Bibtex4Word.
The steps 1 - 6 as described in your tutorial was done without any errors. So, I don’t understand why I can’t insert a citation. I tried to remove the macro and installed a new version from the site of Mike Brookes. I even installed some updates for MilkTex v2.6. Any ideas what to do next?
Binh
72 Hans Nordhaug // Oct 22, 2007 at 9:01 am
First I must thank you for writing this entry - I didn’t even know that BibTeX4Word existed. Some quick comments:
- The BIBSTYLE value in comment 23 is wrong. It must be either “BIBSTYLE=plainnat/ndu !/” or just “BIBSTYLE=plainnat/ndu !”. The space was missing and the style flag selector was changed (when it shouldn’t have been).
- I think you should try to simplify step 3 more (ref comment 25 by you, James). As the documentation for B4W says, MiKTeX normally updated the PATH automatically. It’s better to ask people to test if the bibtex command is found. If not, they should be pointed to the “appendix”.
- I have asked the author of B4W to sign the next version of the macro, to avoid the security questions.
- As already pointed out, the current version of B4W is 1.54 and it solves some of the problems reported in the comments. Maybe this should be made clear in the beginning of the post. The docs for B4W is also worth reading…
- We need a FAQ list: Error 53 is missing bibtex executable, using colon in the bib keys causes entries to be not found … Either add it to this post or ask the author of B4W to do it (if you have any contact with him).
Thx again.
Hans
PS! Quick comment to Binh: Does your bib keys contain colons? See comment 23.
73 Pawel // Nov 19, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Unfortunately it seems not to work on Mac OS X and Word 2004. When I copied the .dot file to a startup directory (and restarted Word) no new toolbar appeared. When I just opened the dot file and then tried to use the new toolbar then there are some errors and a debugger launches…
74 Mike // Nov 19, 2007 at 9:10 pm
The macro is written in visual basic and unfortunately microsoft dropped support for this in the Mac version of word. So sadly it will never work on Macs.
75 Emanuel // Dec 9, 2007 at 9:41 am
WOW, this is exactly what I needed. Thank you very much for your instructions!
76 Reinaldo Silva // Dec 10, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Hi,
Thank you very much for this great macro!
Just one question: Could you tell which style has references as footnotes? I was not able to find one in the list.
Thanks in advance!
77 James // Dec 10, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Thanks for the Macro should be directed to Mike Brookes, the author of BibTeX4Word.
Do you mean placing a reference in a footnote, or outputting the bibliography in a footnote?
Regards
James
78 Reinaldo Silva // Dec 10, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Thanks for answering.
I think the first one. I mean like this 1(superscript) then a footnote as 1. See D. Knuth The Art…
And more, if possible, the bibliography in the end, all books, articles used.
Sorry if I did not make myself clear.
Thanks again!
79 Ricardo // Dec 21, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Thank you for making these instructions available. It was really very useful. However, I am using Windows Vista now… My MS-Word is yet 2003. Could you help me to configure the same enviroment for Windows Vista?
Thanks in advance
80 James // Dec 21, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Reinaldo,
Sorry I am afraid I am not sure how to achieve this
Ricardo,
I am afraid I haven’t used Vista yet, if I install it I will endeavor to have a play.
Regards
James
81 Dimiter // Dec 22, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Hi, Excellent tool. I use it every day in the office.
However I run into problems while trying to use references within M$ Word tables.
I also tried to use it on my old MS Word 2000 at home but it gives interpretation errors. Are you aware of its backwards compatibility?
Thanks in advance
82 James // Dec 23, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Dimiter,
I am afraid I haven’t tried it on 2000.
Regards
James
83 Kevin // Jan 15, 2008 at 10:38 am
Hi James,
Thank you for this useful guide. I followed every step but failed at step 8 when I tried to create Bib list. The error says “Compile error in hidden module: Bibtex4Word”. This seems to be the problem for old versions of Word but I am using Word 2003. Would you be able to give me some comment on this?
Thank you very much.
Best Regards,
Kevin
84 Luigi // Jan 19, 2008 at 10:52 am
Any news on how to import JabRef citations into Word 2007? Thanks
85 Casey // Jan 20, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Hi, James,
I run into the same questions, which is described by Kevin. And I use the word 2003, my OS is win XP. Any suggestion on this issue? thanks in advance.
86 James // Jan 20, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Kevin and Casey,
I am afraid I don’t have any ideas, Luigi, I don’t know of a method, but if I do I will publish a post.
Regards
James
87 ram2gb // Jan 28, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Is there any way to use JabRef citations into Word 2007? I need IEEE style. Thanks
88 James // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:41 am
You could convert the file from BibTeX to MS Word 2007 Bibliography format and then use the built in Bibliography generator.
Regards
James
Link to bibtex2word 2007 Bibliography Converter here.
89 ram2gb // Jan 30, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Thanks James,
but MS Word 2007 doesn’t have IEEE style. I modified ISO Numerical but couldn’t achieved what I needed. Like author before title in conference and journals etc. so, I am looking for more rigid method.
90 Christian // Jan 30, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Hi there and thanks for the nice howto!
I used Latex quite a bit but I struggle to get the following working with bibtex4word:
I want to have my citations like this (using APA or AGU style):
In-text citation:
[Kesik et al.2005]
In references:
Kesik, M., Ambus, P., Baritz, R., Brüggemann, N., Butterbach-Bahl, K., Damm, M., Duyzer, J., Horvath, L., Kiese, R., Kitzler, B., Leip, A., Li, C., Pihlatie, M., Pilegaard, K., Seufert, G., Simpson, D., Skiba, U., Smiatek, G., Vesala, T., and Zechmeister-Boltenstern, S. (2005). Inventories of N2O and NO emissions from European forest soils. Biogeosciences, 2:353–375.
Do you have any idea on how to achieve this? There must be others using this style as it’s quite common in bio/geosciences. I always get the bloody numbering (with flag /n) or the Author-key ([Kesik et al. 2005]) in my references… I’m going nuts…
I used agufull04 and other styles with natbib in Latex and this was not a problem…
Cheers,
Christian
91 Sonja // Mar 17, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I have also some problems with references in tables with word 2004.
Cp. the post of Dimiter // Dec 22, 2007 at 9:14 pm
“Hi, Excellent tool. I use it every day in the office.
However I run into problems while trying to use references within M$ Word tables.”
Always, after updating the bibliography the reference moved into the next cell. If the reference is in the last cell of a row, there is an error.
Does anybody know something about a workaround?
Thanks in advance!
Sonja
92 James // Mar 17, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Chrisitan and Sonja,
I am afraid I don’t know of a way to fix either of those problems! If you find out please feedback.
Regards
James
93 Sophie // Mar 28, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Hello everybody,
At office, we still work with Word2002. I copy the bibtex4word.dot model at the right place, and it seems that it works but… when I try to format my bibliography, I obtain this message:
“Missing Bibtex log file: C:\documents and settings\user\local settings\temp\bibtex4word.blg”.
Is there a solution ?
Many thanks
Sophie
94 James // Mar 28, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Sophie,
See comment <a href="../how-to-use-jabrefbibtex-with-microsoft-word-2003/#comment-520" rel="nofollow">#62</a>.
Regards
James
95 Jo // Apr 16, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Hello,
I feel I can make a contribution:
say, you choose to make a new .bst bibtex-style and follow the general outline given on many websites:
1) in a commandshell, run “latex makebst”
2) let it guide you through all the decisions and
3) generate a new .bst: then,
4) copy that new .bst into the one MikTeX-Folder where all the other .bst’s reside (…\beebe)
then, often forgotten but very important:
5) run “texhash” in the commandshell. Otherwise, Bibtex4word will not be able to incorporate and use your newly created .bst
Have fun!
Jo v B
96 James // Apr 16, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Thanks Jo!
97 Liang // Apr 28, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Hi James
I managed to install the Macro and insert the citation. However, when I want to make the Bibliography List, it popped out ” Compile error in hidden module: Bibtex4Word “. So I was not able to insert the list. Maybe you can help me on this?
Thanks!
Liang
98 Stefan // May 15, 2008 at 7:42 am
Hi,
great tool.
Is it possible to use two or more bibfiles?
Thanks in advance.
Best Regards
Stefan
99 Johann // Jun 17, 2008 at 11:28 am
Dear all,
Despite comment #62 I have :
“Missing Bibtex log file: C:\documents and settings\user\local settings\temp\bibtex4word.blg”
However, when I run bibtex from comand line, it works and the bibtex4word.blg file is created using the bibtex4word.aux as an input.
I use MiKTeX 2.7
Any idea ?
thanks,
Johann
100 Kolja // Jun 27, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Hi Ricardo,
the Windows Vista path is \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP
Best wishes
101 Usman // Jul 16, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I am using “abstract” style to insert Bibliography in my thesis. This style sort the references with respect to their keys. However I have one problem regarding the case-sensitivity of my keys. In JabRef I have defined all keys with their first alphabet in uppercase letter. However, in my Word document the keys are inserted with all lowercase letters. Can’t the keys be displayed in the Word in exactly the same case as I have defined them in JabRef (i.e. first letter in uppercase)? Your help will be highly appreciated.
Thanks.
102 Ruida // Jul 19, 2008 at 1:11 am
Here is a possible solution for error “Compile error in hidden module: Bibtex4Word”
I like bibtex4work but it really cause me a lot of trouble. I always got compile error even I am using word2003. It took me a while to solve the problem so I feel my solution may help others too.
1) download visual basic runtime from here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=bf9a24f9-b5c5-48f4-8edd-cdf2d29a79d5&displaylang=en
2) move bibtex4work.dot out of \word\startup folder otherwise you won’t be able to debug it
3) open word and press “alt+F11″ and microsoft visual basic should show up
4)you can then go to Debug-> compile project to compile bibtex4word
5) you should find two errors:
SubList = Array(”—”, Chr(151), “–”, Chr(150), “!`”, “¡”, “?`”, “¿”, _
““”, Chr(147), “””, Chr(148))
and:
AccentList = Array(”`’^”"~cvut=.Hbd”, _
“AÀEÈIÌOÒUÙaàeèiìoòuù”, _
“AÁEÉIÍOÓUÚaáeéiíoóuúYÝyý”, _
“AÂEÊIÎOÔUÛaâeêiîoôuû”, _
“AÄEËIÏOÖUÜaäeëiïoöuüyÿYŸ”, _
“AÃNÑaãnñ”, _
“CÇcç”, _
“SŠsšZŽzž”)
my solution is remove stuff inside array() and make it looks like this:
SubList = Array()
AccentList = Array()
6) save the file and make a copy to \word\startup
bibtex4word working properly for me now but I don’t know what is the consequence of making such modification.
Pleas let me know if you have any further problem
103 James // Jul 22, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Great fix Ruida Thanks!
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