LaTeX Bibitem Styler

This program allows you to automatically sort \bibitems by citation order or alphabetically.

Description

There's a major problem in LaTeX bibliography styling/sorting when not using BibTeX.

When using BibTeX, one can specify a \bibliographystyle, but if we're generating our bibliography from plain \bibitem entries, using the \thebibliography command, there's no way of specifying the output style.

Given a main .tex file and a bibliography .tex file (containing only bibitems), the LaTeX-BibitemStyler will go through all the input .tex files of your project, collect the cites in order of appearance, and allow you to generate a new bibliography .tex file while specifying one of the following output styles.

• PLAIN.
• ALPHA. Alphabetical order
• UNSRT. Cite order of appearance

This project currently has two flavors:

• Microsoft .NET application
• Python

If you found this useful, please drop us a line! Reviews and suggestions are very welcome!

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Usage: .NET application

It’s very easy to use, just fill in the textboxes…

Main Tex File

The main file of your LaTeX project. I.e.: thesis.tex. See example below:

\documentclass[letterpaper,oneside,british,english,11pt]{book}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{3}
\setcounter{tocdepth}{3}
\makeatletter
\providecommand{\tabularnewline}{\\}
\floatstyle{ruled}
\newfloat{algorithm}{tbp}{loa}
\floatname{algorithm}{Algorithm}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\include{titlePage}
\pagenumbering{roman}
\pagestyle{plain}
\input{abstract.tex}
\input{acknowledgements.tex}
\tableofcontents{}
\listoffigures
\pagenumbering{arabic}
\pagestyle{fancyplain}
\newpage
\input{intro.tex}
\input{chapter1.tex}
\input{chapter2.tex}
\input{chapter3.tex}
\normalsize
\nocite{*}
% ***** This is what you would usually do to include a bibliography *****
    %\bibliographystyle{unsrt}
    %\bibliography{biblio.bib}
% ***** But instead you must use a .tex file *****
\input{biblio.tex}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\numberline{}\sf\bfseries{Bibliography}}
\end{document}

Biblio Filename

The LaTeX file where you’ve written your bibliography in a plain style (not a .bib file, it must be a .tex file!). I.e.: biblio.tex. See example below:

\begin{thebibliography}{100}
    \bibitem{army0} BEN KAGE. \emph{Roomba maker iRobot also developing military robots for Pentagon}. 
    [web page], 14 December 2006. NaturalNews. [Visited: 23 January 2009]. 
    URL: \url{http://www.naturalnews.com/021301.html}.
    
    \bibitem{army2} WADE ROUSH. \emph{iRobot Wins \$3.75M Army Contract to Develop Warrior Robot | Xconomy}. 
    [web page], 2 October 2008. Xconomy Boston. [Visited: 23 January 2009]. 
    URL: \url{http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2008/10/02/irobot-wins-375m-army-contractto-develop-warrior-robot/}.
    
    \bibitem{anylogic} XJ TECHNOLOGIES. \emph{AnyLogic - Xjtek}. 
    [web page], 29 December 2008. XJ Technologies Company. [Visited: 18 December 2008]. 
    URL: \url{http://www.xjtek.com/anylogic/}.
    
    \bibitem{simulink} THE MATHWORKS. \emph{Simulink - Simulation and Model-Based Design}. 
    [web page], January  2009. The Mathworks, Inc. [Visited: 18 December 2008]. 
    URL: \url{http://www.mathworks.com/products/simulink/}.
    
    \bibitem{pywin} MARK HAMMOND. \emph{SourceForge.net: Python for Windows extensions}. 
    [web page], 31 July 2008. SourceForge.net. [Visited: 14 April 2008]. 
    URL: \url{http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/}.        
\end{thebibliography}
%%%%% CLEAR DOUBLE PAGE!
\newpage{\pagestyle{empty}\cleardoublepage}

Output Filename

Name of the new bibliography file that will be generated.

Bibliography Style

• PLAIN. Simply rewrite the file with different preamble and postamble.
• APLHA. Generate bibliography file with cites in alphabetical order.
• UNSRT. Generate bibliography file with cites in order of appearance (goes through all your LaTeX project’s .tex files and fetches all cite references).

Preamble

You might want to change your bibliography file’s predefined preamble.

Postamble

You might want to change your bibliography file’s predefined postamble.

Finally, just hit RUN! and let the application perform its magic, it’ll be done in a second. You’ll find the newly generated bibliography file in the original file’s path.

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Usage: Python code

Run the program with command-line arguments:

• The main tex file path (use double '' if you're on Windows)
• The input bibliography tex file name. Mind that all your latex project’s files must be in the same directory.
• The output bibliography tex file name (the name of the new bibliography file that will be generated)
• The bibliography style:
  • 0: PLAIN (Original order)
  • 1: ALPHA (Alphanumerical order)
  • 2: UNSRT (Cite order of appearance)

Example:

python3 LaTeX-BibitemStyler.py main_file.tex bibliography_original.tex bibliography_ordered.tex 2

Then in the main tex file add

\input{bibliography_ordered.tex}

before

\end{document}

License

Copyright 2015 Andreea Georgescu, Sílvia Mur

Licensed under GNU GPL version 2 or any later version

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/