LyX ⇒ Using Lyx, Biblatex and the APA package | Ubuntu 12.04

[RedSquirrel]

Hello everyone,

I would like to use Lyx with the biblatex-apa package for writing up my dissertation. However, I am struggling to get it to work. I have used vanilla Lyx with apacite for previous assignments, but never got inline citation to work; so I had to resort to typing references out manually. For my dissertation, I would like to get more out of Lyx and Latex. I'm only in the early stages of producing my dissertation and I'm trying to get everything working while I'm not under pressure to produce anything.

To that end I am using Ubuntu 12.04, Lyx 2.0.4 and have installed Texlive 2012 using the backports repo. In addition to this, I have also manually downloaded the latest biblatex, biblatex-apa and csquotes to a \texfm\tex\ directory in my home folder. Without this last measure, I get errors with trying to compile. I wonder therefore if something may be wrong with my texlive installation or the means by which Lyx communicates with it.

Now I can get a sample lyx file to compile to pdf, with inline references from a .bib. However, I cannot get the bibliography to appear. I have inserted the following Latex code where I would like the bibliography to appear:

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\begin{refsection}[/home/rfa/Downloads/biblatex/sample.bib] 
\printbibliography
\end{refsection}

I have tried using just print \printbibliography by itself, but then the file refuses to compile to pdf.

The current content of my preamble is as follows:

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\usepackage[british]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage{color}
\usepackage[style=apa, backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{/home/rfa/Downloads/biblatex/sample.bib}
\def\citet{\textcite}           
\def\citep{\parencite}
\def\citealp{\nptextcite}

I have attached my lyx test file along with my sample .bib file in case in may be of use.

In short; I am way out of my depth and will be grateful for any assistance should anyone be both willing and able to give it. Thank you for reading my post

[RedSquirrel]

Ok, I've run a test on my biber binary as outlined in the documentation and unfortunately it did not work.

I downloaded the test files to my home directory, then ran:

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biber --validate_control --convert_control test

Which then produced the following output:

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INFO - This is Biber 1.1
INFO - Logfile is 'test.blg'
ERROR - 'test.bcf' failed to validate against schema '/tmp/par-726661/cache-a94731f07f08c2e7258c27cbe22c0386b0220432/inc/lib/Biber/bcf.rng'
INFO - ERRORS: 1

Edit: Biber 1.2 produces the same result

Edit 2: Uploaded log file.

Edit 3: The problem is now solved!

Fixing the problem involved installing vanilla texlive (in full) and modifying the preamble to the following (please note I created a new shorter .bib file to simplify testing:

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\usepackage[british]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=apa, backend=biber]{biblatex}
\DeclareLanguageMapping{british}{british-apa}
\addbibresource{test.bib}
\def\citet{\textcite}           
\def\citep{\parencite}
\def\citealp{\nptextcite}

\DeclareLanguageMapping is essential otherwise the published year for entries won't appear in the bibliography. I also found that I needed to run biber via the command line in order for a bibliography to be produced in the final pdf file.