Introduction

bibgetter is a tool for mathematicians writing papers in LaTeX, making bibliography management easier. You can also read this documentation online at bibgetter.github.io.

Installation

It is best to install it using pipx, which is a clean way to install Python applications.

As an end user, the best solution is likely to run

pipx install git+https://github.com/bibgetter/bibgetter

As a developer (so this is a reminder to myself, mostly), it is

pipx install --editable --force .

Workflow

There is a central BibLaTeX file, located at ~/.bibgetter/bibliography.bib which acts as a central repository for bibliography entries.

Adding entries

• bibgetter add adds entries to the central file in an automated way

One can add entries to this file in the following ways:

1. by hand (and indeed, the whole point is that you curate a single file, once)
2. by specifying arXiv or MathSciNet id's
3. by specifying an .aux file (or files), scanning for bibliography keys being used

An example of the second option:

bibgetter fetch 2411.14814 2410.07620 MR1234567

An example of the third option:

bibgetter fetch --file article.aux

If an entry is missing, it will make an API call.

Transferring entries

• bibgetter sync transfers entries from the central file to a local file

It takes as input a list of entries that should exist in the local file, but maybe don't. It then looks for these in the central file, and if present, copies them to the local file. It will not overwrite existing entries.

The anticipated use case is the following:

bibgetter sync --file article.aux --local bibliography.bib

This option is guaranteed to work offline.

Both at once

• bibgetter pull is the combination of bibgetter add and bibgetter sync

So most likely you want to have something like

bibgetter pull --file article.aux --local bibliography.bib

in your toolchain.