Problem solved, but I am even more confused than before. I did install biber and tried it out (after a rather unpleasant time spent fighting with perl dependencies..). The problem remained.
As Richard guessed, there was a problem with the encoding of the LyX file. Switching to Unicode UTF* in the Document>>Settings>>Language pane solved all the problems. After the switch to UTF8, the references were formatted correctly, both by standard bibtex and by biber. I am happy but confused. UTF8 (for bib files) should not be supported by bibtex and Lyx (since it just calls bibtex). Yet it works. I am wondering if there is some magic going on behind the scenes. Cheers, S. On Friday 09 October 2009 07:35:32 am rgheck wrote: > On 10/09/2009 01:02 AM, Stefano Franchi wrote: > > Thanks Richard, > > > > I think I understand better now. I suppose I'll have to try out biber > > (I have switched to BibLatex already) already and check the encoding of > > the LyX file. > > Let me know how biber goes. If it works well, we'll add it to the list > of BibTeX options. In 2.0/1.7, or whatever it is going to be, you can > select which bib-file processor you want to use. At the moment, it's > bibtex and bibtex8, with a "custom" option as well. > > rh > > > Cheers, > > > > > > Stefano > > > > On Thursday 08 October 2009 05:09:42 pm you wrote: > >> On 10/08/2009 05:55 PM, Stefano Franchi wrote: > >>> Dear all, > >>> > >>> is there any special trick to using a .bib file encoded as UTF-8 with > >>> LyX/Latex? If there is, I would certainly appreciate knowing about > >>> it... > >>> > >>> Here is my problem/use-case: > >>> > >>> I use Jabref as my bib files editor. After inserting a reference which > >>> contained the character Ž (Latin capital Z with caron), Jabref > >>> suggested I switched the encoding to UTF-8 because the current one > >>> (8859-1, I suppose), did not contain the requested character. I > >>> accepted the kind offer. Alas, now all the references containing > >>> diacritic marks are screwed up in the Latex output. for instance > >>> Schöpfungs- has become Schöpfungs- and so on. > >>> > >>> Help or pointers to approriate documentation greatly appreciated. I am > >>> sure the day will come when I will master these encoding issues. > >>> Unfortunately I do not seem to be there yet. > >> > >> It sounds like there may be a couple issues here. > >> > >> First, unless I'm mistaken, standard BibTeX simply does not support > >> UTF-8, or any other sort of mutli-byte encoding. Perhaps this has > >> changed, but Philip Lehman wrote just a year and a bit ago: "In contrast > >> to what a lot of users think, it is not and has never been possible to > >> use UTF-8 in bib files. Neither traditional Bibtex nor Bibtex8 support > >> multibyte encodings such as UTF-8. If it seems to work with some files, > >> it only does so by chance." And because BibLaTeX also relies upon BibTeX > >> for some of its work, this won't change even there. > >> > >> There's also this project, though: > >> http://biblatex-biber.sourceforge.net/. Basically, it replaces BibTeX > >> with a program written in Perl. I haven't tried it, but it should be > >> possible to use it with LyX if you're also using BibLaTeX. It may even > >> work without it. I don't know. > >> > >> The weirdness with Schöpfungsis probably due to a conflict between the > >> encoding of your document and the encoding of the .bib file. E.g, the > >> document isn't in UTF-8. > >> > >> Richard > > > > ______________________________________________________________ > > Stefano Franchi > > Department of Philosophy Ph: (979) 862-2211 > > Texas A&M University Fax: (979) 845-0458 > > 305B Bolton Hall fran...@philosophy.tamu.edu > > College Station, TX 77843-4237 > ______________________________________________________________ Stefano Franchi Department of Philosophy Ph: (979) 862-2211 Texas A&M University Fax: (979) 845-0458 305B Bolton Hall fran...@philosophy.tamu.edu College Station, TX 77843-4237
