Cannot see the .bib file contents

Question

I'm realty new at using LaTeX. But I have an problem getting an .bib file to show in my output:

\documentclass[]{article}
\usepackage{natbib}

\begin{document}

\title{Title}
\author{Author}
\date{Today}
\maketitle


\bibliographystyle{alpha}
\bibliography{Litteratur}

Content

\end{document}

And my Litteratur.bib looks like this:

@book{goossens93,
author    = "Michel Goossens and Frank Mittelbach and Alexander Samarin",
title     = "The LaTeX Companion",
year      = "1993",
publisher = "Addison-Wesley",
address   = "Reading, Massachusetts"
}

I'm using Latexian as my editor, and I have been into and change the setting so the type set I set to 2. And then exporting BibTeX is checked. But then I look at the log file after exporting. It's saying this:

This is BibTeX, Version 0.99d (TeX Live 2011)
The top-level auxiliary file: TSWLatexianTemp_000003.aux
The style file: alpha.bst
Database file #1: Litteratur.bib
Warning--I didn't find a database entry for "Friedl2006"
(There was 1 warning)

But I don't no where it gets that Friedl2006.

You have no \cite commands in your source. Without them, you will get no citations. This is covered in most LaTeX guides: perhaps take a look at http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/11/what-is-the-best-book-to-start-learning-latex — Joseph Wright, Apr 05 '12 at 20:10

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:34

Your examples doens't show everything. I am trying to point out some relevant problems:

You need a specific bib file with the correct syntax. The syntax of a bib file are shown here. An other relevant question is URL of cited web site in bibliography The example is:

@Book{abramowitz+stegun,
  author    = "Milton {Abramowitz} and Irene A. {Stegun}",
  title     = "Handbook of Mathematical Functions with
               Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables",
  publisher = "Dover",
  year      =  1964,
  address   = "New York",
  edition   = "ninth Dover printing, tenth GPO printing"
 }

To get a reference inside your document you have to call them. For example a specific entry is called via \cite{abramowitz+stegun}. If you want to get everything of your bib file in the bibliography without citing you can simple use \nocite{*}.

Last but not least the compiling is important. The correct order of compiling is:

(pdf)latex filename.tex
bibtex filename.aux
(pdf)latex filename.tex
(pdf)latex filename.tex

Thanks. Instead of using \cite i used \nocite{*} instead and now it works. — mortenstarck, May 23 '12 at 00:40

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered May 14 '12 at 20:45

Citation from the Latexian FAQ:

"I see question marks where labels and references should appear in Preview and Live Preview. What should I do?

By default, Preview and Live Preview only do a single typesetter run without any options to maximize performance (Export does multiple runs). You can configure Preview and Live Preview to do multiple runs and/or run BibTeX in the Preview section of Latexian's Preferences. Then, your labels and references should appear."

In own words: go to: Latexian --> Preferences --> Preview then under "typesetting options" mark "BibTex" and set "number of typesetting runs" to 2.

Cannot see the .bib file contents

2 Answers2