Document Classes ⇒ Fixing my university's thesis class to use natbib/biblatex

[ben____]

Copied from the tex.stackexchange thread:
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/ ... r-biblatex

My university's thesis class breaks when using natbib/biblatex. It breaks all \chapter*{name} commands so that they make a chapter called * with text name in their body. Using \bibliography{myRefs} with natbib gives me a screwed up chapter name (*). Using \printbibliography with biblatex does the same.

Is there an easy way to get the author name or year out of a citation without using either of those packages?

I'd happily roll my own \citeauthoryear and \citep commands if it's possible. I don't know TeX well enough to change the class file to avoid that behaviour.

I posted a sample document showing the issue here: https://github.com/benjones/brokenThesis

[Johannes_B]

Hi and welcome.

I looked a bit around the class file. In 1994 LaTeX2e went out to be the new standard. The template you are using is basically LaTeX2.09 with some TeX spots. Let me have a look at it, i'll do my best to provide a fix/workaround.

But to be honest, there is no use in fixing the class. Someone should listen and make a decision: Scrap the thing and rewrite it from scratch using methods of our time.

[Johannes_B]

I was just looking at this again, and i am quite amused as the class does not support starred chapters.

Bibliographies are usually typeset unnumbered, which equals starred chapters/sections in LaTeX. You can come around this by just typesetting the list numbered.

Code: Select all

\documentclass[Chicago]{uuthesis2e}
\usepackage{biblatex}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
\begin{document}
\chapter{usual chapter}
In \citeyear{companion} some nice guys wrote
\citetitle{companion}~\cite{companion}.
\chapter*{starred chapter}
\cite{aristotle:physics}
\printbibliography[heading=bibnumbered]
\end{document}

[ben____]

Yeah, who knows...

Thanks for taking a look. I'll see if the editors whine about a numbered bibliography chapter and go from there.

I wonder what changes between the normal \bibliography command and the one from natbib (or \printbibliography from biblatex for that matter).

Thanks again for the help

[Johannes_B]

Good question. Please see my updated answer over at TeX.SX. I'll add everything here later.

[ben____]

You and Egreg are awesome. Thanks again.