BibTeX

BibTeX

Original author(s)	Oren Patashnik, Leslie Lamport
Developer(s)	Oren Patashnik
Initial release	March 1985; 39 years ago (1985-03)
Stable release	0.99d / March 2010; 14 years ago (2010-03)
Repository	https://tug.org/svn/texlive/trunk/Build/source/texk/web2c/
Written in	WEB
Platform	Cross-platform
Included with	TeX Live
Size	384 KB
Available in	English
Type	Reference management software
License	Knuth License
Website	Official website

BibTeX is both a bibliographic flat-file database file format and a software program for processing these files to produce lists of references (citations). The BibTeX file format is a widely used standard with broad support by reference management software.

The BibTeX program comes bundled with the LaTeX document preparation system, and is not available as a stand-alone program.^[1] Within this typesetting system its name is styled as ${\displaystyle {\mathrm {B{\scriptstyle {IB}}\!T\!_{\displaystyle E}\!X} }}$. The name is a portmanteau of the word bibliography and the name of the TeX typesetting software.

BibTeX was created by Oren Patashnik in 1985. No updates were published between February 1988 and March 2010, when the package was updated to improve URL printing and clarify the license. There are various reimplementations of the program.

The purpose of BibTeX is to make it easy to cite sources in a consistent manner, by separating bibliographic information from the presentation of this information, similarly to the separation of content and presentation/style supported by LaTeX itself.