2

Suppose I have file A.tex that is the main document and has a list of references, say

[1] Reference 1
[2] Reference 2
[3] Reference 3
[4] Reference 4

There is also B.tex which is like a letter and I want to be able to cite some references from A in B, keeping the order as in A. For example, I would like to cite [2] and [4] in B and also have the reference list 

[2] Reference 2
[4] Reference 4

at the end of B. Is this possible and how?

passerby51
  • 2,395
  • Can you please provide a minimal example? You have tagged this both Biblatex and BibTeX. Are you using Biblatex with backend=bibtex? That's the only way I can make sense of the tagging. – cfr Oct 17 '15 at 22:27
  • That sounds like a complicated issue. See also the distantly related and not yet answered Excluding items cited in another .tex file from biblatex bibliography? – moewe Oct 18 '15 at 05:20
  • @cfr, I am interested in solution based on both Biblatex and BibTex. Providing a minimal example is difficult besides what I wrote above since I don't know how to do it! – passerby51 Oct 18 '15 at 19:01
  • So Biber isn't an option at all? That's a shame. For help creating an example, see here. – cfr Oct 18 '15 at 19:11
  • @cfr, it could be, I am all ears! Biber is a bit more inconvenient since I have to run it separately on the .bcf file every time (?), while runing pdflatex on a document containing ...[backend=bibtex]{biblatex} once seems to work. I wonder if there is an easy solution to my problem using Biber? Can I, for example, pass the .bcf file from A through Biber to achieve what I am after? – passerby51 Oct 18 '15 at 20:31
  • @passerby51 That's just a question of configuring your editor or using something like Arara. BibTeX definitely needs to be run if you use that backend. Probably it is just that your editor defaults to BibTeX. – cfr Oct 18 '15 at 21:15

1 Answers1

3

Here is a solution using the docmute package.

The idea is to import the other document in a savebox but not actually typeset it. In order to be able to print only those entries cited in our actual main document we will have to use a refsegment. To ensure that all defernumbers features work as expected we also always print the bibliography from the the other document to make sure the numbering is fine.

\makeatletter
\defbibenvironment{plainimport}{}{}{}
\newsavebox{\importbox}
\newcommand{\importcites}[1]{%
  \sbox\importbox{\vbox{%
    \citetrackerfalse
    \begin{refsegment}
      \input{#1}
      \let\blx@anchor\@empty
      \printbibliography[env=plainimport,segment=\therefsegment]
    \end{refsegment}}}}
\makeatother

We then have a command \importcites which takes the file name of the .tex document we want to import the citations from. Use it directly after \begin{document} of your main file.

In the example setup \jobname.tex corresponds to your file B, and \jobname-ext.tex is file A. The technical machinery needs to reside in file B, file A is only ever mentioned in \importcites. You will have to call \printbibliography in file B with segment=\therefsegment (or segment=0) to work properly. If you omit the segment argument you will get to see the references of file A as well.

MWE

\documentclass[british]{scrartcl}  
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=numeric,backend=biber,sorting=none,backref=true,defernumbers=true]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
\usepackage{docmute}

\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname-ext.tex}
\documentclass[british]{scrartcl}  
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=numeric,backend=biber,sorting=none]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}

\begin{document}
\cite{sigfridsson} and \cite{geer} and \cite{worman} and \cite{cicero}
\end{document}
\end{filecontents*}

\makeatletter
\defbibenvironment{plainimport}{}{}{}
\newsavebox{\importbox}
\newcommand{\importcites}[1]{%
  \sbox\importbox{\vbox{%
    \citetrackerfalse
    \begin{refsegment}
      \input{#1}
      \let\blx@anchor\@empty
      \printbibliography[env=plainimport,segment=\therefsegment]
    \end{refsegment}}}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\importcites{\jobname-ext}
\cite{geer} and \cite{cicero}
\printbibliography[segment=\therefsegment]
\end{document}

example output

moewe
  • 175,683
  • Thanks. It mostly worked with some caveats: (1) I had to comment out float environments in the A document, otherwise I would get errors, (2) docmute apparently drops the preamble of A, so I had to move those definitions to the preamble of B, (3) I use hyprref package to make the citations hyperlink so that they jump to the reference list once clicked. This didn't work in B, and I assume it is because they point to ref. list in A somehow? It would be really nice if (3) can be fixed. – passerby51 Oct 18 '15 at 20:17
  • Oh... and another wired problem: Since A ends in some appendices, now all sections in B are appendices... – passerby51 Oct 18 '15 at 20:23
  • @passerby51 This solution would be much better if there was a way to essentially disable all commands in A save for the macros biblatex provides (especially floats and \appendix, just write \let\appendix\@empty, but one will have to make sure to gobble enough arguments). We can get correct hyperlinking with the fix I edited in just a few seconds ago. – moewe Oct 19 '15 at 05:47
  • sorry for the long delay. I have tried your fix for hyperlinking (seems to be \let\blx@anchor\@empty), but it doesn't seem to help. Any ideas? – passerby51 Dec 22 '15 at 18:05
  • @passerby51 Mhhh, could you possible come up with an example that makes troubles. At the moment I cannot say why I thought that this was the right way to go then, but I will happily investigate with something more to go on. – moewe Dec 22 '15 at 18:18