BibTeX, biblatex and biber ⇒ Bibliography with ?

[Silver1]

Hi guys,

I have a problem when adding references in my latex file.

I created my bib file using JabRef in the same folder as my latex document. I used
\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{library/references.bib}

When i compile into DVI or PDF my references appear as ?. When i open the bbl file i find that it is empty (only has begin and end nothing in the middle). Not sure where im going wrong please help!

[gmedina]

Hi,

are you actually citing the documents in your .tex file? I mean, are you using \cite{<key>} commands? Try adding \nocite{*} in your .tex file (that command will include every item in the .bib file in the bibliography section).

(Don't forget that you must compile with (pdf)latex, bibtex, (pdf)latex and (pdf)latex).

[Silver1]

Thank you for your reply.

I am using \cite{<key>}

I tried adding \nocite{*} at the begining of the document but i still get the question marks. Is the bbl file supposed to be empty?

[gmedina]

...Is the bbl file supposed to be empty?

No. The .bbl file should contain the thebibliography environment and all the bibliographical information formatted according to the selected style.

Are you processing your document as I said in my previous reply?

[Silver1]

I am compiling it from dvi->ps and ps->pdf because if i do pdflatex from the start then it gives me errors that it doesnt read any of the eps files (my pictures)
so complicated lol

[gmedina]

I am compiling it from dvi->ps and ps->pdf because if i do pdflatex from the start then it gives me errors that it doesnt read any of the eps files (my pictures)...

Then compile once with latex, once with bibtex, two more times with latex and then convert the resulting DVI file to PS format and finally to PDF.

[Silver1]

Hello sorry for the late reply was away for a few days.

I tried what you suggested and i still have the same problem (see them as questionmarks).
I noticed that when i do the bibtex part it says "i did not find a database entry for "name of reference" ". I guess that makes sense since the bbl file is still empty.
Any other suggestions??

Thanks in advance

[Silver1]

Hello everyone,

I solved my problem. Just in case anyone else comes across it this is what happened:

I use JabRef to make my bib file. The authors in JabRef have to be separated by "and" rather than commas so A. Jones and B. White
In the text they come out with commas so latex reads and as comma.

Hope it helps someone in the future it defenetly gave me a headache.