Re: [Tip] Export a bibliography to HTML with bibLaTeX and make4ht

[Gustavo Barros]

Hi Juan,

On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 at 16:20, Juan Manuel Macías 
<maciaschain@posteo.net> wrote:

> I agree with what you comment here and in your previous message. In
> fact, I'm afraid this (humble) approach of mine is focused only on
> creating a mere list of references in HTML from a bib file, keeping 
> the
> same bibliography styles that I have customized in bibLaTeX, but not 
> on
> everything related to citations throughout the text and on the
> consistency between citations and bibliographies. I would say that my
> method is not a good starting point to implement a solution. [...]
>
> In my case, anyway, I had been using the TeX ecosystem almost
> exclusively for my work in typesetting and editorial design (I do not
> use DTP software, which is not intended to create books but magazines
> and newspapers), and Org Mode for writing and notes. But in recent 
> years
> I have come to realize that a workflow based also on Org and 
> Org-Publish
> is tremendously productive for me to manage the typesetting of a book,
> especially a complex book. Let's say now I also use Org as a 
> high-level
> interface for LaTeX. I'm currently working on the /Hispanic Dictionary
> of Classical Tradition/ (/Diccionario Hispánico de la Tradición
> Clásica/), a volume of multiple authorship and about 1200 pages. The
> method I raised in this thread has to do with this scenario, where 
> each
> dictionary entry is accompanied by a bibliography. As the dictionary
> will have an online secondary version, I wanted to keep the same
> bibliography style that I had defined for bibLaTeX. I have not had the
> problem of the citations here, since the entries do not contain
> citations (bibliographies only). Otherwise, I think an emergency
> solution could be to export from Org to *.tex, and then generate the
> HTML from there using make4ht and another preamble /ad hoc/, better 
> than
> using a mixed csl/bibLaTeX method which, as you say, can result in 
> many
> inconsistencies.

Well, I think your approach should work quite well for your use case, 
and certainly a number of others. It is just a matter of being aware of 
the limitations of the tool. That given, it is great. Of course, I was 
also curious how you had figured things from a more general perspective.

> The
> essential problem, of course, is that our customization is 
> LaTeXcentric:
> it resides in LaTeX/bibLaTeX and not in Org. [...]

I think it is more than just being "LaTeXcentric".  Depending on 
requirements, there is really no choice.  We don't hear this often, but 
the fact is that Org does not support citation and bibliography by 
itself.  A lot of things "work", and in many requirements scenarios that 
seems to be enough, but what does work relies on outsourcing that task 
to other tools.  As far as I know, there are only two ways out of an Org 
document with citation and bibliography: LaTeX (and its related tools: 
bibtex, biblatex, biber, etc), and pandoc (which uses CSL to process 
these features).  The first option is extremely featureful, but 
restricts us to .pdf output.  The only sufficiently general option with 
multi output is then pandoc, which in turn bypasses the whole Org export 
infrastructure, implying its own trade-offs because of that.  Besides, 
there is no real link between the LaTeX infrastructure and pandoc/CSL, 
so that if you want to reach "best results in LaTeX, and acceptable 
results in other formats", you are bound to live with differences in 
output for citation/references across formats and to remain under the 
restrictions of the least featureful backend.

> Long ago I tended to be more in favor of the idea that a single
> source-text should produce multiple identical or interchangeable
> formats. I really still believe it with enthusiasm and I have not
> completely lost faith in such a utopia ;-)

I'd also would love to see that. ;-)

And I do think Org is, by far, the best placed tool to fill this place. 
But I also think citations and bibliography are a big bottleneck in that 
regard.  Of course, there is a long ongoing effort in that area, in the 
`wip-cite' branch, and the related `org-citeproc' package.  I'm still in 
the hope this will get merged in future not too distant, as it would 
change things in that regard.  Not in the sense of "magically solving 
all of these problems", but in providing a convened base upon which 
people can than invest their time and effort, and try to figure each 
case out, with time.

Best regards,
Gustavo.