Why is my references section of my LaTeX document empty, and how can I change its name?

Question

In my document I have to specify the references I'm using. I used this code in the preamble:

\bibliographystyle{abbrv}
\bibliography{main}

Where main is the .bib file from the same folder, and contains, for example:

@string{jgr = "J.~Geophys.~Res."}

@MISC{primes,
   author = "Charles Louis Xavier Joseph de la Vall{\'e}e Poussin",
   note = "A strong form of the prime number theorem, 19th century",
   year = 1879
   }

@INBOOK{chicago,
   title = "The Chicago Manual of Style",
   publisher = "University of Chicago Press",
   edition = "Thirteenth",
   year = 1982,
   pages = "400--401",
   key = "Chicago"
   }

But at the References section nothing is displayed, when generating the .pdf. I have rebuild the .bib and the .tex file, without any changes.

And how can I change that default text, from References to Bibliografie or something else?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 26 '10 at 19:12

I think that you need to put \nocite{*} somewhere within your document -- putting it inside the preamble should cause LaTeX to throw a "cannot be used in preamble" error. If they're still not appearing within your document, is LaTeX giving you any errors and, if so, can you tell us what they are?

To change the default text from "References" to whatever you would like, use the following command:

\renewcommand{\bibsection}{\section*{insert_title_here}}

Note that the asterisk after \section means that it won't be associated with a number. If you want it to be associated with a number, just remove the asterisk.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 26 '10 at 16:53

0

You have to actually \cite references for them to be included in the bibliography. If instead you want everything in the bib file in the bibliography put \nocite{*} somewhere in the preamble. Read here what this actually does.

answered Jun 26 '10 at 16:53

Benjamin Bannier

55,163
11
60
80

I wanna everything that it's in the .bib file. And where should i write this \nocite{*}? – qwerty Jun 26 '10 at 16:55
@qwerty: The preamble. Between the `\documentclass` line and the `\begin{document}` line. – Donal Fellows Jun 26 '10 at 17:11
No, i got the error: Cannot be used in preamble, at nocite{*} between \documentclass – qwerty Jun 26 '10 at 17:13
@qwerty: Try putting it elsewhere, but before you include the bibliography file. – Benjamin Bannier Jun 26 '10 at 17:47

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 26 '10 at 17:06

You have to either \cite or \nocite a reference for it to appear in your References section. I'm not sure how to change the name of the bibliography. I would start by looking at the LaTeX WikiBook. It looks like there is a tool make makebst that produces a custom bibliography style - take a look at the custom-bib package and this document for more details.

Why is my references section of my LaTeX document empty, and how can I change its name?

3 Answers3