pubs is a command-line bibliography manager designed to keep research papers and their bibliographic information organised. It provides commands for maintaining a personal reference library, attaching documents and preparing citations for academic writing.
The application uses citation keys to identify individual references. Bibliographic information is kept separate from other metadata, such as document locations and tags. The data is stored in plain-text files, allowing it to be inspected and modified using standard text tools.
pubs fits naturally into workflows involving LaTeX, shell scripts and version control. Researchers can maintain their collections without depending on a graphical reference manager or an online account. The emphasis is on providing practical commands that work alongside existing terminal utilities.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Maintain a bibliography using unique citation keys for identifying references.
- Import existing BibTeX files, including references associated with document attachments.
- Retrieve bibliographic information using DOI, ISBN or arXiv identifiers.
- Attach PDF files and other documents to bibliography entries.
- Open associated documents directly from the command line, with support for specifying an external application.
- Export bibliographic records to BibTeX for use in LaTeX documents and other publication workflows.
- Integrate bibliography generation into Makefiles and scripts so reference files can be regenerated automatically.
- Search and filter bibliography entries using command-line arguments.
- Built-in Git plugin that can automatically record changes to a reference library.
- Support for maintaining multiple independent bibliography repositories with separate configuration files.
- Custom command aliases for integrating external shell commands into the pubs interface.
- Configurable document handling and file locations.
- Command-line completion support through Python’s argcomplete package.
- Self-documenting configuration and command-specific help.
Website: github.com/pubs/pubs
Support:
Developer: Fabien Benureau, Olivier Mangin, and contributors
License: GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0
Pubs is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Terminal-Based Bibliography Tools | |
|---|---|
| coBib | Simple, console-based bibliography management tool |
| Rebiber | Replaces unofficial BibTeX references with official records |
| papis | Extensible command-line based document and bibliography manager |
| bibiman | TUI for fast and simple interaction with a BibLaTeX database |
| bibtex-tidy | Cleans, sorts and formats BibTeX bibliography files |
| Hayagriva | Rusty bibliography management |
| bibman (Haskell) | CLI/TUI bibliography manager |
| pubs | Bibliography on the command line |
| BibMan | TUI bibliography manager |
| Xapers | Personal journal article management system |
| papers | Command-line tool to manage bibliography |
| Gorae | Terminal-based library manager for PDF and EPUB collections |
| CiteBib | Generate a Bibtex or LaTeX bibliography |
| bibclean | BiBTeX and Scribe bibliography prettyprinter and syntax checker |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 LinuxLinks helps you discover the best free and open source software for Linux. Explore our extensive collection of recommended applications, including alternatives to popular proprietary software.We also publish software reviews, Linux tutorials, hardware reviews, free programming books and articles covering the wider open source community. Browse our Linux resources to discover more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application we haven't covered? Suggest a program for inclusion. Has your software been featured on LinuxLinks? Display one of our Featured on LinuxLinks badges on your website or GitHub README. |
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.