It's possible to include references in Overleaf using all of LaTeX's major bibliography management programs: biblatex, natbib and bibtex. This article explains how to create a .bib
file storing your bibliography database from scratch, how to upload an existing one, how to import your references from Mendeley or Zotero to an Overleaf .bib
file, and how to create a .bib
file starting from a template.
To create a new bibliography file in your Overleaf project, in the editor, click New File icon |
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an input box will appear for you to set the name of the new file. The file should have the .bib extension, in this example is called "mybibliography.bib"; now click on Create. |
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A new file will be listed in the left panel, click it to edit its contents. Add your bibliography entries there. |
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Now you can import this .bib file in the main .tex file. See the next example
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[
backend=biber,
style=alphabetic,
sorting=ynt
]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{mybibliography.bib}
\title{Bibliography management: \texttt{biblatex} package}
\author{Share\LaTeX}
\date{ }
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{First section}
Using \texttt{biblatex} you can display bibliography divided into sections,
depending of citation type.
Let's cite! The Einstein's journal paper \cite{einstein} and the Dirac's
book \cite{dirac} are physics related items.
Next, \textit{The \LaTeX\ Companion} book \cite{latexcompanion}, the
Donald Knuth's website \cite{knuthwebsite}, \textit{The Comprehensive
Tex Archive Network} (CTAN) \cite{ctan} are \LaTeX\ related items; but
the others Donald Knuth's items \cite{knuth-fa,knuth-acp} are dedicated
to programming.
\medskip
\printbibliography
\end{document}
The command \addbibresource{mybibliography.bib}
adds the created bibliography file to the document so you can use those references. See Bibliography management in LaTeX for more information about bibliography management.
If you already have a bibliography file that you need to use in a Overleaf project, you can upload it. Click the Upload icon |
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A dialogue box will appear, you can either drag and drop the .bib file or click Select file(s) to navigate to the location of your file. |
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Once the upload process is finished you can include the .bib file in your main .tex document. See the last example in the previous section.
Overleaf provides a vast set of templates for almost all kind of LaTeX documents, they include several bibliography-related ones.
If you are in the editor view, click the "Back to projects" icon |
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In the Project Management view click the button New Project, then in the drop-down menu that will appear click Bibliographies. |
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You will be redirected to a list of bibliography templates |
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click the one you prefer, in the next page click Open as Template: |
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The template will open in the Overleaf editor so you can start working on it. |
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For more information about bibliography management in LaTeX see.