I can't really test your example file due to how old biblatex-historian
is. (I have version 0.4, which is from 2010, which is 'ancient' given how actively biblatex
and biber
are being developed.)
As @cfr noted, the package relies on (I believe) an old and no longer used command, \SetCiteCommand
. I need to disable the command to get your example file to run; then I do get the XeTeX-related problem you describe, which is easy to work around by adding abbreviate=true
to your biblatex
load options. Here's a complete example:
\documentclass[letterpaper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@book{Book,
author = {John Smith},
title = {A book with a very long title to make sure that it wraps around to a second line},
address = {1600 Pennsylvania Ave},
publisher = {Good Books Press},
year = 2014,
}
\end{filecontents*}
\usepackage{iftex}
\ifXeTeX
\usepackage{fontspec}
\fi
\ifPDFTeX
\usepackage[american]{babel}
\fi
\usepackage{fullpage}
\usepackage[top=1in, bottom=1in, left=1in, right=1in]{geometry}
\ifXeTeX
\usepackage{polyglossia}
\setmainlanguage[variant=american]{english}
\fi
\usepackage[doublespacing]{setspace}
\newcommand\SetCiteCommand[1]{}% <--- ADDED; you may need to remove this line
\usepackage[
abbreviate=true, % <--- ADDED
style=historian, % Loads the Historian files
backend=biber,
sorting=nty, % Sorts bibliography by name, title
autocite=footnote, % Autocite command generates footnotes
mincrossrefs=1, % Includes all x-ref'ed entries in the bibliography
usetranslator=true, % Translator's name may be substituted for
% author or editor, if the latter are blank
printnoterefs=false, % Do not print "see note" short shortened notes
printseries=true] % Options provided by Historian, see below
{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\begin{document}
This is a reference to a footnote.\footcite[1]{Book}. This should be an Ibid.\footcite[2]{Book}
\end{document}
Here's the relevant output from \listfiles
:
biblatex.sty 2013/11/25 v2.8a programmable bibliographies (PK/JW/AB)
biblatex2.sty 2013/11/25 v2.8a programmable bibliographies (biber) (PK/JW/AB)
historian.dbx
blx-compat.def 2013/11/25 v2.8a biblatex compatibility (PK/JW/AB)
biblatex.def
standard.bbx 2013/11/25 v2.8a biblatex bibliography style (PK/JW/AB)
historian.bbx 2010/08/22 v0.4 historian bibliography style
historian.cbx 2010/08/22 v0.4 historian citation style
biblatex.cfg
english.lbx 2013/11/25 v2.8a biblatex localization (PK/JW/AB)
I'm using version 1.8 of biber
.
I hope your older set-up can use this solution, but it seems that the abbreviate
option was introduced in version 0.9c, which is exactly one minor release after the version of biblatex
the biblatex-historian
package claims to have been tested against.
If it does not work, you might(!) still have a solution, however. If you are using a TeX Live distribution, you can download the 2.8a version from sourceforge and the appropriate version of biber and update your installation. tds.zip
files are extremely easy to install, just unzip at the base of your texmf
tree, refresh the database, and you're good to go. However, I would sandbox the new installation until you are certain that biblatex-historian
works with the newer form of biblatex
before you remove the older one.
If you are leery of updating a setup that otherwise works for you, there are still options. One of the least invasive choices would be to add the following to the preamble:
\DefineBibliographyStrings{english}{ibidem = {ibid\adddot}}
which, as you can see, forces the use of 'ibid.' for the english
language option (and thus is not american
-specific). This is a good idea when you only need to make the change to one or two files.
Alternatively, you could make your own version of english.lbx
and make the changes you want to it so it works (better) with Turabian requirements. E.g., you can locate line
ibidem = {{ibidem}{ibid\adddot}},
in english.lbx
and change it to
ibidem = {{ibid\adddot}{ibid\adddot}},
This simply defines the ibidem
string to only know the abbreviated form.
The advantage of this solution is that one changed file can be used for multiple documents if placed in a smart location (such as what the command kpsewhich --var-value TEXMFHOME
returns; in my case that's ~/texmf
, which means I would put the english.lbx
file in ~/texmf/tex/latex/biblatex/lbx/
). It is important to note that this file will be selected before the one that ships with biblatex
, which might not be what you want. As is so often the case, it is worth taking some time to think about what your long-term needs are and then act accordingly.
As a largely irrelevant aside:
Note that American English does not 'have' only an 'ibid.' form: the period following the 'd' is a suspension mark, which marks that the word is abbreviated after the 'd' [i.e., the rest of the word is 'suspended']. 'Ibid.' is merely a common abbreviation for 'ibidem', which is a Latin adverb. Suspension marks, one of many forms of abbreviation in use way back when, are also why pedants might insist that we should use 'Dr' rather than 'Dr.', or that 'St.' is fine for 'street' but not for 'saint' since the abbreviation of 'doctor' and 'saint' comes from in-between the first and final letters and thus the dot incorrectly marks what is being suspended. Luckily pedants don't usually get their way..!
\SetCiteCommand
.)biblatex
, one seems to get "ibid." all the way.biblatex-historian
is older than theabbreviate
option in standardbiblatex
.