\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex} does not work, backend=bibtex works

Question

When using the backend=biber option, I get a warning:

package Biblatex warning: Please (re)run Biber on the file: (biblatex) myproject

Result: References are not recognized.

1. Yes. A similar question does exist - but no solution is provided: Problem getting biber/biblatex/XeLaTeX/TeXworks working together.

2. biblatex in a nutshell (for beginners) - as a MWE.

backend=bibtex works like charm.

Question: What are the detailed steps to get backend=biber working? (When people say run that command or another there is a need of context.)

So my editor is TeXnicCenter.

And I have no clue how to run Biber on my file under TeXnicCenter... or any other environment.

Consider me as a simple mortal that really would like to get this solved, save forever and never come back again.

In TexnicCenter I don't have to do anything fancy with the MWE using backend=bibtex except creating a .bib file. Then I press Build current file - and get valid pdf with my references, which is a way it should be - simple and concise. If there is a tendency to recommand biber for utf-8 support, then we should get fast deployment so this will be adopted faster.

The problem inherently is the same as this one: How to use biber.

Answer 1

I would create a new build profile, say LaTeX > PDF (Biber), which is a copy of LaTeX > PDF (the one set up by default in TeXnicCenter):

Now add biber as the BibTeX compiler:

In the above "Command line arguments to pass to BibTeX", %tm refers to the file "Title (without extension)". You can also add other arguments to want to pass to biber here (like the file encoding, for example). For all options, see the biber documentation.

Now you can compile (no output) your document once under the LaTeX > PDF (Biber) profile and a second time under the LaTeX > PDF profile. In sequence, this performs a pdflatex > biber > pdflatex compilation. If you wish to do this in one click, you can add the following to the LaTeX > PDF (Biber) profile's Postprocessor tab:

The pdflatex process arguments are copied from the main profile page.

Running the following MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}% http://ctan.org/pkg/filecontents
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}% http://ctan.org/pkg/biblatex

\begin{filecontents*}{references.bib}
@article{mybibkey,
    author = {A. Author},
    title = {Some amazing work of art},
    journal = {A fur realz journal},
    volume = {17},
    number = {3},
    year = {2013},
    pages = {1--99}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\addbibresource{references.bib}

\begin{document}
See~\cite{mybibkey}.

\printbibliography

\end{document}

under LaTeX > PDF (Biber) with the added Postprocessor pdflatex component yields the one-click output

I would suggest keeping separate output profiles, since you only need to compile with biber once you have a change of bibliographic items, so you don't need to do it with every compile.