# Convert back from biblatex to bib

**URL:** <https://discourse.jabref.org/t/convert-back-from-biblatex-to-bib/955>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [December 15, 2017, 6:53pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/convert-back-from-biblatex-to-bib/955 "2017-12-15T18:53:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![arjunkc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@arjunkc](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/arjunkc)\
**Post date:** [December 15, 2017, 6:53pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/convert-back-from-biblatex-to-bib/955/1 "2017-12-15T18:53:39Z")

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Hi, after cleaning up my bib file from bibtex to biblatex format, I’d like to go back. It’s causing a lot of trouble with my collaborators who do not use biblatex, and continue to use natbib. Is there a tool that converts back my bib file back from biblatex format?

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**Author:** ![tobiasdiez](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/tobiasdiez/32/340_2.png) [@tobiasdiez](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/tobiasdiez)\
**Post date:** [December 15, 2017, 9:48pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/convert-back-from-biblatex-to-bib/955/2 "2017-12-15T21:48:22Z")

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Sadly this is not possible at the moment but we have it on our [radar](https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/issues/1018#issuecomment-204395326). For now, you have to use replace & find of your favorite text editor to revert the biblatex fields like `journaltitle` back to bibtex `journal` (and dates are a bit harder).

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**Author:** ![tobiasdiez](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/tobiasdiez/32/340_2.png) [@tobiasdiez](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/tobiasdiez)\
**Post date:** [December 15, 2017, 10:33pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/convert-back-from-biblatex-to-bib/955/3 "2017-12-15T22:33:49Z")

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Forget my previous message. It was easier to implement a proper solution than you fiddling around with find & replace. The “convert to BibTeX” functionality is now [in the pipeline](https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/pull/3541) and will be (hopefully) included in version 4.1, which will be released in a few days (around Christmas). I would love to give you a link to the preview version so that you can directly try it out, but we have troubles at the moment with our build system so need to be a bit patient.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![arjunkc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@arjunkc](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/arjunkc)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2017, 12:15am UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/convert-back-from-biblatex-to-bib/955/4 "2017-12-16T00:15:23Z")

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I looked through the code a little bit, and it’s a bit hard to figure out exactly what the cleanup script is changing.

1. There is some ordering change in the fields. This is irrelevant.
2. journal -\> journaltitle
3. year -\> date (in the correct format)

Is there anything else that is changed? If these are the only things, I’ll find/replace with regexp.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tobiasdiez](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/tobiasdiez/32/340_2.png) [@tobiasdiez](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/tobiasdiez)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2017, 12:21am UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/convert-back-from-biblatex-to-bib/955/5 "2017-12-16T00:21:45Z")

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Yes, essentially that’s it. For the conversation in the other direction, all new fields like `journaltitle` are converted to the old ones (`journal`) and, moreover, the date is split into year/month and stored in the corresponding fields.If you have some experience with git, you can also [checkout my branch](https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/tree/implementBiblatexToBibtexCleanup) and build the new version locally.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![arjunkc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@arjunkc](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/arjunkc)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2017, 8:17pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/convert-back-from-biblatex-to-bib/955/6 "2017-12-16T20:17:34Z")

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I built it and ran it. It works pretty well from what I can tell. There were some inversion errors: going from bibtex -\> biblatex -\> bibtex doesn’t quite work, but I could figure out a minimal example. One bibtex entry that it seemed to have trouble with was this:

```auto
@article {MR0062127,
    AUTHOR = {Frame, J. S. and Robinson, G. de B. and Thrall, R. M.},
     TITLE = {The hook graphs of the symmetric groups},
   JOURNAL = {Canadian J. Math.},
  FJOURNAL = {Canadian Journal of Mathematics. Journal Canadien de
              Math\'ematiques},
    VOLUME = {6},
      YEAR = {1954},
     PAGES = {316--324},
      ISSN = {0008-414X},
   MRCLASS = {20.0X},
  MRNUMBER = {0062127},
MRREVIEWER = {D. E. Littlewood},
}

```

Maybe my bibtex file is too messed up now to fix all of these errors.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tobiasdiez](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/tobiasdiez/32/340_2.png) [@tobiasdiez](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/tobiasdiez)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 12:02pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/convert-back-from-biblatex-to-bib/955/7 "2017-12-23T12:02:49Z")

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For me this entry works perfectly well and the round-trip bibtex -\> biblatex -\> bibtex produces exactly the same item. Can you please describe in more detail what your problems are. Thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tobiasdiez](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/tobiasdiez/32/340_2.png) [@tobiasdiez](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/tobiasdiez)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 3:37pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/convert-back-from-biblatex-to-bib/955/8 "2018-01-18T15:37:18Z")

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The biblatex -\> bib conversation is now included in the [latest development version](https://builds.jabref.org/master). If you still have problems or have suggestions for further improvements, please open a new issue at [github](https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/issues).