On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 12:00 PM, Rob Oakes <lyx-de...@oak-tree.us> wrote: > > On Nov 15, 2011, at 10:51 AM, stefano franchi wrote:
>> I had some problems with biblatex/biber (which I also used instead of >> bibtex) but no problems with Lualatex. > > I'd be really interested in hearing about using biber and biblatex. I'm > really interested in moving away from bibtex to something else, and I've > heard really good things. > Hi Rob, that would make for a very long post---or a very short one: I struggled quite a bit with biblatex initially, but LyX had nothing to do with it. I find biblatex to be a truly exceptional and incredibly flexible package that finally brings writing Humanities writing in Latex up to the task. Very sophisticated references can finally be managed quite naturally(1) and the addition of biber makes multilingual references/Unicode a problem of the past. However the flexibility comes at the usual price: steep learning curve. I had to modify the citation and reference styles to suit my publisher's needs and it was a painful process. On the other hand, I did eventually succeed with the help of biblatex's excellent documentation. With BibTex, I would not have even tried. The added complication, in my case, was that Biblatex was a fast moving target when my project began. I started out at version 0.7 and ended when it was at 1.3, I believe. I decided quickly not to chase after it, and I settled on 0.9 until I was done. However, that meant that my whole texlive installation was stuck with it, which was unfortunate. Biblatex seems to have settled down somewhat, however. Final comment: I am glad I jumped ship to biblatex/biber. Vast improvement over bibtex (and its Humanities-oriented hacks like JuraBib, which I was using before jumping ship). It handles complex references very well and it can be customized with some effort. Steep learning curve, for me, at the beginning. For me, Lyx+lualatex+memoir+biber/biblatex is the winning combination for Humanities writing. Cheers, Stefano (1) Consider a reference to th following text, which I had to deal with multiple times: the introduction to an essay by Godel published in the 3rd volume of his collected works, which has individual volume editors as well as general editors. There are four authors involved: introduction's, article's, volume's, and works', plus four related titles, multiple dates, etc. The situation, while extreme, is not uncommon. -- __________________________________________________ Stefano Franchi Associate Research Professor Department of Hispanic Studies Ph: +1 (979) 845-2125 Texas A&M University Fax: +1 (979) 845-6421 College Station, Texas, USA
