LaTeX \ cite gives [?]

Question

at blah.tex, I have

\cite{blah} 

I have a "blah" entry in blah.bib

I ran my file using

 latex blah.tex && blah.tex && dvipdf blah.dvi 

The result of blah.pdf in [?]

How to fix it?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You miss the second latex :

 latex blah.tex && latex blah.tex && dvipdf blah.dvi ------------------^ 

If you are using BibTex (which you obviously do), you will probably have to issue the command a third time (two times after applying bibtex blah ):

 latex blah.tex && \ # that for preparing for bibtex bibtex blah && \ latex blah.tex && \ # that for resolving the crossrefs latex blah.tex && \ # and that for putting them in the right place dvipdf blah.dvi 

Answer 2

You can also take latexmk and no longer think about the whole process :) Just do latex blah and he will take care to collect all the right number of times. It comes with any good TeX distribution, and you can get the manual with texdoc latexmk .

Answer 3

Latex does not look in your .bib file - it looks in your .bbl file. Do you run bibtex in your .bib file to create your .bbl file? Is your record "blah" in your .bbl file? If not, run bibtex again.

Answer 4

Compile it a second time, you're done. Otherwise, clear all auxiliary bla.tex files, create and recompile twice.