Provided by: biber_2.20-2_all 
NAME
"biber" - A bibtex replacement for users of biblatex
SYNOPSIS
biber [options] file[.bcf]
biber [options] --tool <datasource>
Creates "file.bbl" using control file "file.bcf" (".bcf" extension is
optional). Normally use with biblatex requires no options as they are
all set in biblatex and passed via the ".bcf" file
In "tool" mode (see B<--tool> option), takes a datasource (defaults to
"bibtex" datasource) and outputs a copy of the datasource with any command-line
or config file options applied.
Please run "biber --help" for option details
DESCRIPTION
"biber" provides a replacement of the bibtex processor for users of biblatex.
OPTIONS
--annotation-marker=[marker]
Sets the suffix which can be appended to a BibTeX data source field name to indicate
that the value of the field is a data annotation. The default is "+an".
--cache
If running as a PAR::Packer binary, show the cache location and exit.
--clrmacros
Clears any BibTeX macros (@STRING) between BibLaTeX refsections. This prevents BibTeX
warnings about macro redefinitions if you are using the same datasource several times
for different refsections.
--collate-options|-c [options]
Options to pass to the "Unicode::Collate" object used for sorting (default is 'level
=> "4", variable => "non-ignorable"'). See "perldoc Unicode::Collate" for details.
--configfile|-g [file]
Use file as the configuration file for "biber" instead of looking in the default
locations which are, in order:
* "biber.conf" or ".biber.conf" in the current directory
* "$HOME/.biber.conf"
* "$ENV{XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/biber/biber.conf"
* "$HOME/.config/biber/biber.conf"
* "$HOME/Library/biber/biber.conf" (Mac OSX only)
* "$ENV{APPDATA}/biber.conf" (Windows only)
* The output of "kpsewhich biber.conf" (if available on the system).
In tool mode, (--tool) the biber-tool.conf installed with Biber is always used to set
default options if a user-defined config file is not specified. Use the --tool-config
option to view the location of the default tool mode config file which may be useful
as a source for writing your own.
--convert-control
Converts the .bcf control file into html using an XSLT transform. Can be useful for
debugging. File is named by appending ".html" to .bcf file.
--decodecharsset=[recode set name]
The set of characters included in the conversion routine when decoding LaTeX macros
into UTF-8 (which happens when --bblencoding|-E is set to UTF-8). Set to "full" to try
harder with a much larger set or "base" to use a smaller basic set. Default is "base".
You may want to try "full" if you have less common UTF-8 characters in your data
source. The recode sets are defined in the reencoding data file which can be
customised. See the --recodedata option and the PDF manual. The virtual set name
"null" may be specified which effectively turns off macro decoding.
--debug|-D
Turn on debugging for "biber".
--dieondatamodel
Exit immediately with error if using "--validate-datamodel" and a datamodel validation
error is found. Default is to warn and continue.
--dot-include=section,field,xdata,crossref,xref,related
Specifies the element to include in GraphViz DOT output format if the output format is
'dot'. You can also choose to display crossref, xref, xdata and/or related entry
connections. The default if not specified is
"--dot-include=section,xdata,crossref,xref".
--fixinits
Try to fix broken multiple initials when they have no space between them in BibTeX
data sources. That is, "A.B. Clarke" becomes "A. B. Clarke" before name parsing. This
can slightly mess up things like "{U.K. Government}" and other esoteric cases.
--help|-h
Show this help message.
--input-directory [directory]
.bcf and data files will be looked for first in the directory. See the biber PDF
documentation for the other possibilities and how this interacts with the
"--output-directory" option.
--input-encoding|-e [encoding]
Specify the encoding of the data source file(s). Default is "UTF-8" Normally it's not
necessary to set this as it's passed via the .bcf file from biblatex's "bibencoding"
option. See "perldoc Encode::Supported" for a list of supported encodings. The
legacy option --bibencoding is supported as an alias.
--input-format=bibtex|biblatexml
Biber input format. This option only means something in tool mode (see tool option)
since normally the input format of a data source is specified in the .bcf file and
therefore from the \addbibresouce macro in BibLaTeX. The default value when in tool
mode is 'bibtex'
--isbn10
Force all ISBNs to 10-digit versions on output. This will convert the ISBN internally
to an ISBN object which will not have hyphens on output. If you use this option and
want an ISBN with hyphens in the correct place on output, use the --isbn-normalise
option.
--isbn13
Force all ISBNs to 13-digit versions on output. This will convert the ISBN internally
to an ISBN object which will not have hyphens on output. If you use this option and
want an ISBN with hyphens in the correct place on output, use the --isbn-normalise
option.
--isbn-normalise
Normalise ISBNs with hyphens in the correct places on output.
--logfile [file]
Use file.blg as the name of the logfile.
--listsep=[sep]
Use sep as the separator for BibTeX data source list fields. Defaults to BibTeX's
usual 'and'.
--mincrossrefs|-m [number]
Set threshold for crossrefs.
--named-annotation-marker=[marker]
Sets the separator between the "--annotation-marker" and the name of a named
annotation. The default is ":".
--namesep=[sep]
Use sep as the separator for BibTeX data source name fields. Defaults to BibTeX's
usual 'and'.
--no-bblxml-schema
When writing bblxml output, don't generate an RNG XML schema from the data model.
--no-bltxml-schema
When reading or writing biblatexml data sources, don't generate an RNG XML schema from
the data model.
--noconf
Don't look for a configfile.
--no-default-datamodel
Do not load the default datamodel coming from either the .bcf or, when in tool mode,
from the default tool mode config file. Use of this option implies that you will
provide a complete datamodel in a config file. This option is useful when you wish to
make major modifications to the datamodel because the simple add/modify operations to
the default datamodel via a user config file are not enough. For example, to remove
things from the default datamodel, you would use this option and supply a complete,
reduced datamodel in the user config file.
--nodieonerror
Don't exit on errors, just log and continue as far as possible. This can be useful if
the error is something from, for example, the underlying BibTeX parsing C library
which can complain about parsing errors which can be ignored.
--glob-datasources
By default, glob (expand according to pattern) any data source filenames. Allows data
sources to be specified like *.bib to load all .bib files in a directory. Can be
overridden on a per-dataource basis with the glob option to \addbibresource in
biblatex.
--nolog
Do not write any logfile.
--noskipduplicates
Don't skip duplicate bibliography keys if found. The detection of duplicate keys is
done across all data sources. Sometimes you might need duplicates when using several
data sources across several refsections in which case you might need to use this
option.
--nostdmacros
Don't automatically define any standard macros like month abbreviations. If you also
define these yourself, this option can be used to suppress macro redefinition
warnings.
--noremove-tmp-dir
Do not remove the temporary directory used for various intermediate files and data
before exit (default is false). Name of the directory can be obtained with the
--show-tmp-dir option.
--noxname
Disable exended name processing in bibtex data sources. Can be useful if you don't use
this and it causes problems due to auto-detection of extended name format.
--onlylog
Do not write any message to screen.
--others-string=[string]
Use string as the final name in a name field which implies "et al". Defaults to
BibTeX's usual 'others'.
--output-align
Align field values in neat columns in output. Effect depends on the output format.
Default is false. The legacy option --tool-align is supported as an alias.
--output-all-macrodefs
When outputting bibtex format, whether to output all found macro (@STRING entries)
definitions rather than just definitions for macros which are actually used in the
output entries. Default is false.
--output-annotation-marker=[marker]
As --annotation-marker but for tool mode bibtex output. The default is "+an".
--output-named-annotation-marker=[marker]
As --named-annotation-marker but for tool mode bibtex output. The default is ":".
--output-directory [directory]
Output files (including log files) are output to directory instead of the current
directory. Input files are also looked for in directory before current directory
unless "--input-directory" is also specified in which case input files are only looked
for in the directory specified by "--input-directory".
--output-encoding|-E [encoding]
Specify the encoding of the output ".bbl" file. Default is "UTF-8". Normally it's not
necessary to set this as it's passed via the .bcf file from biblatex's "texencoding"
option. See "perldoc Encode::Supported" for a list of supported encodings. The
legacy option --bblencoding is supported as an alias.
--output-fieldcase=upper|lower|title
Case for field names output. Effect depends on the output format. Defaults to 'upper'.
The legacy option --tool-fieldcase is supported as an alias.
--output-field-order=[field1, ... fieldn]
When outputting bibtex format data in tool mode, this option allows the customisation
of the order of fields within entries. The value is a comma-separated string of field
names or classes of fields. Fields not mentioned in the list are output in sorted name
order after the explicitly specified fields. The classes of fields are:
'names' - All name list fields 'lists' - All non-name list fields 'dates' - All date
fields
By default, its value is 'options,abstract,names,lists,dates'.
--output-field-replace=[field1:replacefield1, ... fieldn:replacefieldn]
When outputting bibtex format output "replacefieldn" instead of "fieldn". This can be
used to output legacy formats which undo the default driver source map e.g
--output-field-replace=location:address,journaltitle:journal. See
--output-legacy-dates if legacy (YEAR/MONTH) date fields are required in bibtex format
output.
--output-file|-O [file]
Output to file instead of basename.bbl file is relative to --output-directory, if set
(absolute paths in this case are stripped to filename only). file can be absolute if
--output-directory is not set. file can be '-' to output directly to STDOUT. The
legacy option --outfile is supported as an alias.
--output-format=dot|bibtex|biblatexml|bbl|bblxml|bibjson
Biber output format. Default if not specified is of course, bbl. Use dot to output a
GraphViz DOT file instead of .bbl. This is a directed graph of the bibliography data
showing entries and, as requested, sections and fields. You must process this file
with "dot", e.g. "dot -Tsvg test.dot -o test.svg" to render the graph. See the
--dot-include option to select what is included in the DOT output. bblxml is an XML
version of the bbl format which you could transform using XSLT. By default, when
outputting bblxml, a RelaxNG XML schema is generated from the active data model and
saved with a rng extension along with the output file name (unless the
--no-bblxml-schema option is specified). You may validate the bblxml using the schema
with the --validate-bblxml option. The legacy option --outformat is supported as an
alias.
--output-indent=[num][t]
Indentation for body of entries in output. Effect depends on the output format.
Defaults to 2. The "num" can be followed by 't' to specify tabs instead of spaces. The
legacy option --tool-indent is supported as an alias.
--output-legacy-dates
When outputting bibtex format, output YEAR/MONTH fields instead of DATE. This is not
possible if the input is not convertible to legacy format, meaning that any date to be
output with legacy fields can only have a YEAR part and perhaps a MONTH part. If a DAY
or ENDYEAR part are found, the date is not convertible and the legacy output format
will be skipped. Default is false.
--output-listsep=[sep]
As --listsep but for tool mode bibtex output. Defaults to BibTeX's usual 'and'.
--output-namesep=[sep]
As --namesep but for tool mode bibtex output. Defaults to BibTeX's usual 'and'.
--output-no-macrodefs
When outputting BibTeX format, don't output macro definitions (@STRING entries). You
might not want to output macro definitions if you keep them in a separate file.
--output-resolve
Convenience option to set all of the --output-resolve-* options to 'true'. The legacy
option --tool-resolve is supported as an alias.
--output-resolve-xdata
Whether to resolve XDATA inheritance in tool mode or when --output-format=bibtex in
non tool mode. Defaults to 'false'.
--output-resolve-crossrefs
Whether to resolve CROSSREF/XREF inheritance in tool mode or when
--output-format=bibtex in non tool mode. Defaults to 'false'.
--output-resolve-sets
Whether to resolve data sets in tool mode or when --output-format=bibtex in non tool
mode. Defaults to 'false'.
--output-safechars
Try to convert UTF-8 chars into LaTeX macros when writing the output. This can
prevent unknown char errors when using PDFLaTeX and inputenc as this doesn't
understand all of UTF-8. Note, it is better to switch to XeTeX or LuaTeX to avoid this
situation. By default uses the --output-safecharsset "base" set of characters. The
legacy option --bblsafechars is supported as an alias.
--output-safecharsset=[recode set name]
The set of characters included in the conversion routine for --output-safechars. Set
to "full" to try harder with a much larger set or "base" to use a basic set. Default
is "base" which is fine for most use cases. You may need to load more macro packages
to deal with the results of "full" (Dings, Greek characters, special symbols etc.).
The recode sets are defined in the reencoding data file which can be customised. See
the --recodedata option and the PDF manual. The legacy option --bblsafecharsset is
supported as an alias. The virtual set name "null" may be specified which effectively
turns off macro encoding.
--output-xdatamarker=[marker]
As --xdatamarker but for tool mode output. Default is 'xdata'.
--output-xdatasep=[sep]
As --xdatasep but for tool mode output. Default is '-'.
--output-xname
When output is a .bib BibTeX file in tool mode, whether to output names the eXtended
BibTeX name field format.
--output-xnamesep=[sep]
As --xnamesep but for tool mode bibtex output. Default is '='.
--quiet|-q
Log only errors. If this option is used more than once, don't even log errors.
--recodedata=[file]
The data file to use for the reencoding between UTF-8 and LaTeX macros. It defines the
sets specified with the --output-safecharsset and --decodecharsset options. It
defaults to recode_data.xml in the same directory as Biber's Recode.pm module. See
the PDF documentation for the format of this file. If this option is used, then file
should be somewhere "kpsewhich" can find it.
--show-tmp-dir
Prints the location of the temporary directory used for various intermediate files and
data. Only useful if --noremove-tmp-dir is set to true.
--sortdebug
Add comments to output with sorting keys. Useful for debugging.
--sortcase=true|false
Case-sensitive sorting (default is true).
--sortlocale|-l [locale]
Set the locale to be used for sorting. The locale is used to add CLDR tailoring to the
sort (if available for the locale).
--sortupper=true|false
Whether to sort uppercase before lowercase when sorting (default is true).
--ssl-nointernalca
Don't try to use the default Mozilla CA certificates when using HTTPS to fetch remote
data. This assumes that the user will set one of the perl LWP::UserAgent module
environment variables to find the CA certs.
--ssl-noverify-host
Turn off host verification when using HTTPS to fetch remote data sources. You may
need this if the SSL certificate is self-signed for example.
--strip-comments
In tool mode, strip all comments from the output file.
--tool
Run in tool mode. This mode is datasource centric rather than document centric. biber
reads a datasource (and a config file if specified), applies the command-line and
config file options to the datasource and writes a new datasource. Essentially, this
allows you to change your data sources using biber's transformation options (such as
source mapping, sorting etc.)
--tool-config
Show the location of the default tool mode config file and exit. Useful when you need
to copy this file and customise it.
--tool-noremove-missing-dependants
Use this option in tool mode if you don't want to remove "XREF", "CROSSREF" and
"XDATA" fields from the output which point to a missing entry. Useful if you have
split datafiles where the e.g. "CROSSREF"s are in another file that you are not
including in the tool mode run.
--trace|-T
Turn on tracing. Also turns on --debug|-D and additionally provides a lot of low-level
tracing information in the log.
-u Alias for --input-encoding=UTF-8
-U Alias for --output-encoding=UTF-8
--validate-bblxml
Schema validate bblXML output against a schema auto-generated from the BibLaTeX
datamodel. The schema will be auto-generated with the name of the .bbl file with a
.rng extension. The generated schema can be kept and used with standard XML editors to
validate the output during XSL development.
--validate-bltxml
Schema validate BibLaTeXML datasources against a schema auto-generated from the
BibLaTeX datamodel. The schema will be auto-generated with the name of the .bcf file
with a .rng extension. The generated schema can be kept and used with standard XML
editors to validate the datasource during datasource development. The schema
validation does not validate all semantic aspects of the datamodel (i.e. the data
model constraints)---for this use the "--validate-datamodel" option.
--validate-config
Schema validate the biber config file.
--validate-control
Schema validate the .bcf biblatex control file.
--validate-datamodel|-V
Validate the data against a data model. By default, the data model used is the one in
the .bcf file (normal mode) or in the default config file whose path can be shown with
the "--tool-config" option (tool mode). Use "--no-default-datamodel" to ignore the
default data model completely if you are using a complete data model via your own
config file (with "--configfile").
--version|-v
Display version number.
--winunicode|-W
In Windows 10 1803+, turning on the 'Use Unicode UTF8 for worldwide language support'
option makes Windows use UTF-8 instead of UTF-16 for many system APIs. If that option
is enabled, use this option to turn off biber's UTF-16 filename support on Windows.
This will result in much improved handling of Unicode filenames.
--wraplines|-w=[column]
Wrap lines in the .bbl file (or output .bib file in tool mode) at column column
(default 80).
--xdatamarker=[marker]
Use marker as the string before "--xdatasep" which introduces an XDATA reference in
BibTeX format data sources. Not used in BibLaTeXML data sources as it has a dedicated
XML attribute "xdata"' for this. Default is 'xdata'.
--xdatasep=[sep]
Use sep as the separator between XDATA sub-entry parts in the eXtended name format.
See biber docs. Default is '-'.
--xnamesep=[sep]
Use sep as the separator between namepart names and the namepart values in the
eXtended name format. Also applies to XDATA references as the separator between
"--xdatamarker" and the XDATA reference. See biber docs. Default is '='.
--xsvsep=[sep]
Use sep as the separator for fields of format type "xsv" in the data model. A Perl
regexp can be specified. Defaults to a single comma surround by optional whitespace
(\s*,\s*).
AUTHOR
Philip Kime, "Philip at kime.org.uk"
BUGS & DOCUMENTATION
To see the full documentation, run texdoc biber or get the biber.pdf manual from
SourceForge.
Please report any bugs or feature requests on our Github tracker at
<https://github.com/plk/biber/issues>.
COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
Copyright 2009-2012 François Charette and Philip Kime, all rights reserved. Copyright
2012-2024 Philip Kime, all rights reserved.
This module is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
the Artistic License 2.0.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty;
without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.