BibTeX bibliography style: IEEEtran
The BibTeX style IEEEtran is intended to be used for IEEE Journals and Conferences. References are not sorted in the bibliography.
CTAN » tex-archive » biblio » bibtex » contrib » IEEEtran » IEEEtran.bst

- Bibliography examples for all BibTeX entries


incollection

inproceedings

mastersthesis

proceedings

unpublished

- Supported BibTeX fields
- howpublished
- institution
- nationality
- organization
- CTLuse_article_number
- CTLuse_paper
- CTLuse_forced_etal
- CTLmax_names_forced_etal
- CTLnames_show_etal
- CTLuse_alt_spacing
- CTLalt_stretch_factor
- CTLdash_repeated_names
- CTLname_format_string
- CTLname_latex_cmd
- CTLname_url_prefix
- Other styles
- abntex2-alf
- ametsoc2014
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References in IEEEtran?
I've downloaded the official IEEE LaTeX template but am having some trouble adding references in bibtex format.
For instance if I wanted to cite and reference this article , given as:
- Created references.bib
- Populated it with the above reference
- Uncommented the \usepackage{cite} from the IEEE template
- Adding ~\cite{Khoe:1994:CML:2288694.2294265} to a random section
Inserting this text just above % An example of a floating figure using the graphicx package.
- bibliographies
- In the 5th item of your list: the command \bibliography takes only one argument (the name(s) of the bib file(s)), not two. Also, be sure to delete all aux files left over from previous compilations of your main .tex file before running latex, bibtex, latex, and latex once more. – Mico Jul 7, 2012 at 18:25
- It only takes one argument? - But the official documentation said otherwise :\ — Even after deleting all non *.tex *.bib files from that directory I am still getting aforementioned error. – A T Jul 7, 2012 at 18:27
- 1 What you may think is the official BibTeX site on the web -- hey, the domain name does say bibtex.org , so isn't it by definition official?! -- is in fact not official . For one, the site is not affiliated in any way with Oren Patashnik, the creator of BibTeX. Another dead give-away is that the code examples given on bibtex.org feature an embarrassing number of errors. Don't be misled by the fact that somebody was able to capture the domain name bibtex.org . – Mico Aug 20, 2014 at 19:56
5 Answers 5
General Edit : IEEEtran is just for the author's convenience to get an idea of the approximate end product. The house-style of IEEE is not released and your (journal) article will be modified by the editors and copy-editors of the publication office. So no need to super tune your article, balance columns adjust biographies etc. when you are submitting the final version. A rough idea of what is what is enough.
Having said that I've removed my previous comment as it might be understood as it's Michael Shell's fault which is something that I would not even think. I'm not happy with IEEE and its workflow, that's about it.
First of all, IEEE is really bad with conference style (I should probably say that the IEEEtran is getting old pretty fast.) and many conferences encourage their users to download the ieeeconf style from various sources. However, the following is not giving me any errors:

- Sometimes one needs to clear the auxiliary files and recompile again. Initially I got the same error LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item following this answer, however, once I cleared auxiliary files and recompile again it worked fine without changing anything. Great. – AlFagera Jan 16, 2019 at 14:58
- when I tried to upload my pdf file to my conference I received this error The PDF file has not been certified by PDF eXpress: XeTeX output 2019.01.16:1950 any idea how to overcome that? – AlFagera Jan 16, 2019 at 16:58
It can be either due to;
- Wrong path or name to citation file (*.bib). Note that the file-name or path is case sensitive and without extension . \bibliography{./citations}
- There is no citation in the text, i.e. ~\cite{} ... You can temporarily use \nocite{*} to print all citations.
P.S. or may be you are using \ref{} instead of \cite{} ;)
- Citing a paper, compiling the bibtex , and then compiling the tex file solved the issue for me. – NKN Jan 23, 2018 at 16:18
Actual Reason for this error is... I found that there are two things that I found are necessary to make the IEEEtran class compile:
- There needs to be a at least one correct citation in your document one in your bib (in your case, bibi.bib ) file.
- In the tool chain, you need to compile with LaTeX (or equivalently PdfLaTeX) twice , then once with BibTex, and then with LaTeX again to incorporate the bibliography.
If either of these two things is not the case, I also get the same LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item error. Bizarrely, with a single citation it works for me, but after commenting it out it crashes again.
The apparent reason for this is that the IEEEtran class doesn't like empty bibliographies and can't deal with that. I haven't been able to find an underlying reason for that, though, nor a way to fix it.
LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item
Before anything, just put the IEEEabrv in the folder of your TeX installation. It could be as simple as missing IEEEabrv file.
IEEEabrv was missing in my TeX installations. You need to download IEEEabrv and put it in the directory of your TeX file.
If you cite something like ~\cite{Euzenat10} in your text but there is no any reference in the corresponding .bbl file named Euzenat10 , then it throws the mentioned error (it may be the cause of misspelling.). When you execute the BibTex command, you can see the message box which citations it couldn't recognize.
- Welcome to TeX.SX! You can have a look at our starter guide to familiarize yourself further with our format. – strpeter Mar 25, 2015 at 10:17
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged bibliographies bibtex citing ieeetran or ask your own question .
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Scribbr IEEE Citation Generator
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How to cite in IEEE style
IEEE style is a way of citing your sources by listing them all in a numbered reference list at the end of your paper and referring to them with the corresponding number in the text.
IEEE stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the organization responsible for the guidelines. The style is widely used in engineering, computer science, and other technical disciplines, and it’s followed in IEEE’s publications.
Scribbr’s free citation generator can create accurate IEEE style citations for a wide variety of sources.
IEEE references
The numbered reference page appears at the end of your text, listing full information on all the sources you’ve cited. Sources are numbered in the order in which they were cited.
A reference tends to list the author , title , publisher or publication that contains the source, publication date , and URL and DOI if relevant.
Reference examples
The exact information included in a reference varies based on the source type you’re citing. Different details are relevant and available for different sources.
Explore the tabs to see formats and examples for common source types.
When some of the information you need for the reference is missing, you can work around this in various ways, depending on what information is not available.
IEEE Citation Generator
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IEEE in-text citations
In-text citations in IEEE style consist of the number of the relevant reference, presented in square brackets [1]. You should stick to one of these styles, not a mix of the two. Include a citation whenever you quote or paraphrase a source.
Each source has one number. If you cite the same source repeatedly, use the same number each time.
Incorporating citations into sentences
Citations in IEEE can either just be placed at the relevant point in the sentence (e.g., after the author name or after a quote), or they can be incorporated into the sentence structure by treating them like nouns (essentially replacing the name of the author or study).
In either case, multiple sources cited at the same point are separated by commas or by an en dash (for a range of consecutively numbered sources). This punctuation appears outside the brackets.
Page numbers and other locators
When you quote or paraphrase a specific part of a source, include a page number or range within the brackets to point the reader to the relevant passage.
For sources without page numbers where it’s still important to indicate a specific part, use an alternate locator like a paragraph number. For a short source with no locators, it’s fine to just leave this part out.
Scribbr offers a variety of tools and resources to help with citation and other aspects of academic writing:
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Using bibliographies on Overleaf
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Creating your bibliography database
- 3 Uploading your bibliography database
- 4 Using a template
- 5 Supported bibliography packages
Introduction
It's possible to include references in Overleaf using all of L a T e X 's major bibliography management programs: biblatex, natbib and bibtex. This article explains how to:
- manually create a new .bib file for storing your bibliography database
- upload an existing .bib file into your Overleaf project
- create a .bib file starting from an Overleaf template.
Note : If you have a paid Overleaf account, the article How to link your Overleaf account to Mendeley and Zotero shows how to create a .bib file by importing references from Mendeley or Zotero.
Creating your bibliography database
To create a new bibliography file in your Overleaf project, in the editor, click New File icon:

An input box will appear for you to set the name of the new file. The file should have the .bib extension, in this example it is called mybibliography.bib . Now click on Create .

Now you can import this .bib file in the main .tex file. See the next example.

The command \addbibresource{mybibliography.bib} adds the created bibliography file to the document so you can use those references. See Bibliography management in LaTeX for more information about bibliography management.
Uploading your bibliography database
If you already have a bibliography file that you need to use in a Overleaf project, you can upload it. Click the Upload icon located on top of the left panel.

A dialog box will appear, you can either drag and drop the .bib file(s), or choose select from your computer to upload file(s) from your device.

Once the upload process is finished you can include the .bib file in your main .tex document.
Using a template
The Overleaf Gallery provides a large collection of templates, including several bibliography-related templates:

For example, a Gallery search lists the entry Multiple bibliographies with bibunits which shows how to create multiple bibliographies/reference lists in the same document:

If you select "Open as Template" Overleaf will create a new project which you can modify and use as a basis for your work:

Supported bibliography packages
For more information about bibliography management in L a T e X see.
- Bibliography management in LaTeX (using biblatex)
- Bibliography management with natbib
- Bibliography management with bibtex
- Documentation Home
- Learn LaTeX in 30 minutes
Overleaf guides
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- Uploading a project
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- Creating a project from a template
- Using the Overleaf project menu
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- Using the Symbol Palette in Overleaf
Figures and tables
- Inserting Images
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- Lists of Tables and Figures
- Drawing Diagrams Directly in LaTeX
- TikZ package
References and Citations
- Bibliography management with biblatex
- Bibtex bibliography styles
- Natbib bibliography styles
- Natbib citation styles
- Biblatex bibliography styles
- Biblatex citation styles
- Multilingual typesetting on Overleaf using polyglossia and fontspec
- Multilingual typesetting on Overleaf using babel and fontspec
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- Sections and chapters
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You can have the specifications of the IEEE bibliography style with biblatex, simply using \usepackage [style=ieee] {biblatex} in the place of [style=numeric], and using the bib extension in \addbibresource {references.bib} (contrary to the bibtex command bibliography {references} ), as @Mico pointed in his comment.
The IEEEtran class says: Citations are made with the \cite command as usual. IEEEtran will produce citation numbers that are individually bracketed in IEEE style. (" [1], [5]" as opposed to the more common " [1, 5]" form.) The base IEEEtran does not sort or produce compressed "ranges" when there are three or more adjacent citation numbers.
Bibtex bibliography styles Contents 1 Introduction and example 2 Table of stylename values 3 Further reading Introduction and example When using BiBTeX, the bibliography style is set and the bibliography file is imported with the following two commands: \bibliographystyle{ stylename } \bibliography{ bibfile }
There is a biblatex-ieee package, so your [style=ieee] should work fine, provided the corresponding package is installed. - Bernard Apr 16, 2021 at 13:15 Thanks, that's what I thought after I tried it. However, when I add this line to the report.text file it says: "LaTeX Error: Option clash for package biblatex."
Generate IEEE Styled Bibliography for all kinds of items - Overleaf, Online LaTeX Editor Generate IEEE Styled Bibliography for all kinds of items Open as Template View Source View PDF Author Khan Reaz Last Updated 6 years ago License Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 Abstract This is a skeleton file to create IEEE style Bibliography list.
IEEE Download Citation mechanism spits out these odd BibTeX entries and it's certainly not acceptable as you have found out. So there is almost always some work to do after downloading from IEEE, e.g., journal names comes out as journal= {some journal, IEEE Transactions on} and you have to revert it each time.
[ biblatex-ieee] should never be used with IEEEtrans. The latter has an official BibTeX style which (like all journal-type submissions) must be used as specified by the publisher. The biblatex-ieee bundle is for users of biblatex who want an IEEE (like) bibliography style.
IEEE's bibliography style has several unique attributes that increase the complexity of BIBTEX styles that attempt to mimic it. Because the primary design goal of IEEEtran.bst is to reproduce the IEEE bibliography style as accurately and as fully as possible, IEEEtran.bst will consume significantly more
IEEE's bibliography style has several unique attributes that increase the complexity of BIBTEX styles that attempt to mimic it. Because the primary design goal of IEEEtran.bst is to reproduce the IEEE bibliography style as accurately and as fully as possible, IEEEtran.bst will consume significantly more
BibTeX bibliography style: IEEEtran The BibTeX style IEEEtran is intended to be used for IEEE Journals and Conferences. References are not sorted in the bibliography. Download CTAN » tex-archive » biblio » bibtex » contrib » IEEEtran » IEEEtran.bst Usage
Asking my office colleague expert on IEEE Access, the solution is just adding these two lines: \bibliographystyle {unsrt} \bibliography {refs} Where my bib file is refs.bib. It works properly as it is. No other packages are needed. Share Improve this answer Follow edited Nov 28, 2020 at 21:03 answered Dec 2, 2019 at 11:24 Leos313 609 6 15 1
Generate IEEE Styled Bibliography for all kinds of items This is a skeleton file to create IEEE style Bibliography list. There is a guide added "create-manual-bib-entry.txt" to manually create popular types of references such as PhD thesis, website, unpublished work etc. Modified by K. Reaz ( [email protected]) Support sites: http://www.ieee.org/
In the tool chain, you need to compile with LaTeX (or equivalently PdfLaTeX) twice, then once with BibTex, and then with LaTeX again to incorporate the bibliography. If either of these two things is not the case, I also get the same LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item error.
Biblatex bibliography styles - Overleaf, Online LaTeX Editor Biblatex bibliography styles The next commands are the ones that set the bibliography style and import the bibliography file. See Bibliography management with biblatex for more information.
Generate IEEE references and in-text citations in seconds with Scribbr's free IEEE Citation Generator. Websites, books, articles, and more. FAQ; ... Easily export in BibTeX format and continue working in your favorite LaTeX editor. ... IEEE style is a way of citing your sources by listing them all in a numbered reference list at the end of ...
The ieee bibliography style for biblatex∗ Joseph Wright† Released 2021/12/06 Thispackageprovidesastyleforbiblatex whichfollowstheguidelinesofthe ieee.
These bibliography files are includes to provide one example of how to set up a bibliography for your IEEE paper. For more information on using bibtex for references in your IEEE journal papers, see this FAQ. IEEEtran.cls version: 1.8b Tags Bibliography Citations Academic Journal IEEE Official Templates IEEE (all) Direct Submission Link
authortitle-icomp A style combining authortitle-comp and authortitle-ibid. authortitle-terse Variant of authoritle that only prints the title if the bibliography contains more than one work of the respective author/editor. authortitle-tcomp Style combining authortitle-terse and authortitle-comp.
The ieee bibliography style for biblatex∗ Joseph Wright† Released 2021/12/06 Thispackageprovidesastyleforbiblatex whichfollowstheguidelinesofthe ieee.
IEEE's bibliography style has several unique attributes that increase the complexity of BIBTEX styles that attempt to mimic it. Because the primary design goal of IEEEtran.bst is to reproduce the IEEE bibliography style as accurately and as fully as possible, IEEEtran.bst will consume significantly more
To create a new bibliography file in your Overleaf project, in the editor, click New File icon: An input box will appear for you to set the name of the new file. The file should have the .bib extension, in this example it is called mybibliography.bib. Now click on Create. A new file will be listed in the left panel, click it to edit its contents.