Bibtex4Word - FAQ

Contents: Freq Asked Questions - Error Messages - Known Bugs - Feature Wishlist

If your question is not answered here, you may find it helpful to visit the wiki generously established by James at http://www.medicalnerds.com/how-to-use-jabrefbibtex-with-microsoft-word-2003/.

Frequently Asked Questions

Installation

I cannot see the Bibtex toolbar

(a) You must restart Word if it was already running when you installed the bibtex.dot template
(b) Check that the template was copied into the correct startup folder: within Microsoft Word click Tools>>Options>>File Locations>>Startup>>Modify in order to discover where the Word Startup folder is. Then click "Cancel" to avoid changing it to something else.
(c) When downloading the template, Internet Explorer sometimes changes it from a template file to a document file. From within Word, open the file and then select "Save As" and save it in the Word Startup folder as a file type "Document Template (*.dot)".
(d) Check that the add-in is enabled. In Word 2002/3, click "Tools->Templates" and "Add-ins" and ensure that bibtex4word.dot is listed with a check mark. In Word 2007, click the Microsoft Office Button (at top left), then "Word Options" and "Add-Ins"; in the Manage box at the bottom, select "Templates" and click "Go"; ensure that bibtex4word.dot is listed with a check mark.

Bad Behaviour

Bibliography disappears when it is updated

If you install the cygwin package after installing MikTex, Bibtex4Word will use the wrong version of bibtex.exe. Possible fixes are:
(a) use the "+" style flag
(b) alter the PATH environment variable so that MikTex precedes cygwin
(c) delete or rename the cygwin bibtex.exe file
(d) Specify the correct bibtex file as the BIBEXE environment variable
     e.g. BIBEXE=C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\miktex\bin\bibtex.exe

Selection of Styles

I created a new style but BibTeX cannot find it

If you create a new style, you need to run texhash from a command window in order to update BibTeX's list of files. You can ulso update it by following: Programs-> MikTex 2.x-> Maintenance(Admin)-> Settings(Admin) and then clicking on "Refresh FNDB".
You can verify that style xxx is visible to MikTex by typing "kpsewhich xxx.bst" from a command window.

Formatting of Citations

I want the citations to have parentheses instead of brackets, be superscripts, etc

The detailed formatting of the citations is controlled by the style flags whose use is described in the user guide. Thus a style plain will use square brackets whereas plain/( will use round parentheses and plain/(^ will use round parentheses and superscripts.

Parentheses adjacent to a citation disappear when I refresh the bibliography

To avoid leaving unwanted parentheses in the document under some circumstances, Bibtex4Word deliberately gobbles up any parentheses that are immediately adjacent to a citation. To avoid this, insert a zero-width space between the citation and the parenthesis that you wish to preserve. How to enter a zero-width space sadly depends on the version of Word you are using as well as the font and language settings, the easiest way in Word2002+ is to type 200B in the document and then hold down Alt and type X.  If you have enabled the display of non-printing characters, the zero-width space is displayed on the screen as a square within a square but it will not appear when printed.

Formatting of Bibliography

The author names appear twice in my bibliography entries

This happens if you are using a Harvard style and either (a) omitted to include the "l" style flag which suppresses the label or else (b) have "hidden text" visible. To turn off hidden text select Tools>>Options>>View (Word 2003) or Office-Button>>Word-Options>>Display (Word 2007) and make sure that both "Hidden Text" and "All" are unchecked.

The /l option does not hide the labels

The most common reason for the /l option apparently failing to work is that "hidden text" has been made visible.  To turn off hidden text select Tools>>Options>>View (Word 2003) or Office-Button>>Word-Options>>Display (Word 2007) and make sure that both "Hidden Text" and "All" are unchecked.

The bibliography entries are in the wrong order

The order in which the bibliography is sorted is determined by the Bibtex style that you have chosen to use. The majority of styles arrange the bibliography alphabetically by author, but others sort by year of publication or else list references in the order in which they are cited in your document. A more detailed discussion is given in the user guide.

The bibliography appears at the wrong place in my document

The position of the bibliography within your document is determined by the current cursor position when  you click  for the first time. If it is in the wrong place, select it all and delete it. Now place the cursor where you want the bibliography to be and click  again.

Upper case letters are converted to lower case in the title.

It is a quirk of BibTex that the case of letters in the title field is ignored and the selected BibTex style applies its own capitalization scheme. If you surround text by braces, then its case will be preserved, e.g. "{UNESCO}", "{\Delta}".

Error Messages

Bibtex was unable to find style: xxx

The style "xxx" was not available. This means that the style is either (a) spelled incorrectly or else (b) that has not been installed in Miktex. To solve the latter cause, open the MiKTeX package manager (Programs->MiKTeX v.v->Browse Packages), type "xxx.bst" in the "Filename:" box and click "Filter". If the package has not yet been installed, the column headed "Installed on" will be blank; right click the package and select "Install". You may need to select the server to download from by selecting Repository->Change Repository: select "Packages shall be installed from the Internet", click "next" and then select a nearby server. It is possible to set an option so that MiKTeX downloads any missing packages automatically, but I do not recommend this because it will get stuck for ever if the server is not working.
If you create a new style, you need to run texhash from a command window in order to update BibTeX's list of files. You can ulso update it by following: Programs-> MikTex 2.x-> Maintenance(Admin)-> Settings(Admin) and then clicking on "Refresh FNDB".
You can verify that style xxx is visible to MikTex by typing "kpsewhich xxx.bst" from a command window.

Compile error in hidden module: Bibtex4word

(1) This error will appear if your version of Word is too old. Bibtex4Word requires Word 2002 or later.
(2) This error used to happen because the macro included some non-ASCII characters which would not work if the locale was set to other than West European Latin. It was, I hope, fixed in V1.68.

Missing Bibtex log file: ...

This error means that the BibTeX program could not be found. Run bibtex from a command window and check that you receive a message saying Need exactly one file argument. If not, try re-installing MikTeX. If you do get the correct response, try the solutions suggested in "Bad behaviour: Bibliography disappears when it is updated " above.

Empty BBL file: ...

This error may mean that the requested BibTeX style is not installed in MikTex. To install it, see "Error Messages: Bibtex was unable to find style: xxx " above.

Run-time error '75': Path/file access error

This error occurs if Bibtex4Word tries to use a read-only folder for its temporary files. Set the environment variable BIBTEMP to a valid writable folder.

Run-time error '76': Path not found

This error occurs if Bibtex4Word tries to use a non-existent folder for its temporary files. Set the environment variable BIBTEMP to a valid writable folder.

The macro cannot be found or has been disabled because of your Macro security settings

Some users have reported this error message in Word 2010. Changing the Macro security settings has no effect.Unfortunately I do not use Word 2010 and I have no idea what causes this message.

Word has insufficient memory. You will not be able to undo this action once it is completed. Do you want to continue?

If you update a large bibliography, Word will issue this message to warn you that it is such a large change to your document that it will not be possible to undo it. You probably do not care about this, so just say "Yes". This problem was fixed in V1.62 by clearing the "undo buffer" provided that style flag 1z is not specified.

Known Bugs

BibTeX database

Search function does not work for BibTeX files with UNIX-style line endings

Citation Formatting

If the style flag ^ is deleted from the format, the brackets or parentheses surrounding citations incorrectly retain superscript formatting. This incorrect formatting can be removed for individual citations by highlighting the citation and typing Ctrl+'+' or globally by removing superscript formatting using the Replace function (Ctrl+H) : click "More->Format->Font->Superscript" for the "Find what" box and leave "Replace with" blank.

Citations that are in a table sometimes move to an adjacent cell

Visual Basic Problems

A file created in Word2003 can sometimes result in a Visual Basic runtime error 5 when updating the bibliography in Word2007 or later.

Updating the bibliography when Word in is "reviewing mode" can also result in Visual Basic runtime error 5

Bugs that are now fixed

Citation Formatting

V1.57: Style agsm does not decode the label correctly when the same author has written multiple papers in a single year.

Feature Wishlist

User Interface

Have a more user-friendly search interface (e.g. like Lyx)

Eliminate the restriction that bibtex keys cannot include the magic characters

Ability to insert citations directly from Jabref

Fix the save dialog box to show the correct file extension

Allow citations to be entered in plain text using a suitable escape sequence (e.g. "[[Einstein1905]]") and then converted to citations later.

Support \href{url}{label} for more flexible hyperlinks

BibTeX database

Allow the use of more than one database file

Formatting

Allow multiple bibliographies

Allow different types of citation formatting within a single document (e.g. \citet, \citep, \citet*)

Latex Interpretation

Full support for styles using the mcite/mciteplus (multiple citations) package (e.g. achemso)

Support for biblatex