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My .bib files are generated by Mendley desktop and usually contain URLs, ISSN and DOIs, but I don't want those to be displayed in my list of references. How can I get rid of them (short of deleting those from the entries, I just want to not display them...) I am using biblatex.

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3 Answers 3

178

Assuming you are using standard styles, use biblatex package options doi=false,isbn=false,url=false,eprint=false. For example,

\usepackage[doi=false,isbn=false,url=false,eprint=false]{biblatex}

The manual describes these as 'style-specific' options, as they do depend on the bibliography style in use.

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    I know this is an old question, and I might ask a new one, but this appears to strip ISBN (useful for books) as well as ISSN (not so useful for journals.
    – Chris H
    Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 12:01
  • 1
    @ChrisH Would probably be a new question, but I've never seen a published bibliography giving ISBNs (depend on things like hard/soft backing as well as text itself).
    – Joseph Wright
    Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 12:07
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    I found another question answering precisely this at tex.stackexchange.com/q/40097/28808 which works for me. I take your point but I'm sure I've seen it in thesis bibliographies, and if you were to cite page numbers it would make sense, as a given numbered edition may not have the same pagination in all versions (considering international versions as well as bindings)
    – Chris H
    Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 13:53
  • Where can I find out about the rest of the optional arguments for biblatex?
    – Luke Davis
    Commented May 7, 2017 at 2:36
  • The standard ones are in the biblatex manual, any added by styles should be documented in their manuals.
    – Joseph Wright
    Commented May 7, 2017 at 7:19
23

Alternatively, if you want biblatex not to see these fields at all, use Biber and see section 4.5.3 of the biblatex manual. You are now able to filter out arbitrary fields (and map them to other fields) before biblatex even sees the data with so-called source maps.

\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage[style=authoryear, backend=biber]{biblatex}

\DeclareSourcemap{
  \maps[datatype=bibtex]{
    \map{
      \step[fieldset=issn, null]
    }
  }
}

\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}

\begin{document}
\cite{sarfraz}
\printbibliography
\end{document}
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    This is also very helpful to remove the abstract field, which quite often contains strange characters like % but will rarely ever be used in the bibliography.
    – matth
    Commented Oct 28, 2011 at 14:06
  • I tried to look it up, but with the current version 2.12 as of Feb. 2019 there is no section 2.1.1 anymore (have a look at the biber-manual at CTAN). There is a section 3.1.1 but I couldn't find a clear reference for the given problem there.
    – BadAtLaTeX
    Commented Feb 25, 2019 at 11:52
  • The reference is to a very old version of biber. See section 4.5.3 of the current biblatex manual.
    – PLK
    Commented Mar 17, 2019 at 13:36
  • could this be used to exclude all fields except a certain selection?
    – rovyko
    Commented Nov 25, 2019 at 1:48
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If you're using Zotero you can use the Better-Bibtex plugin to omit specific fields from its exported bibtex file. This can be configured in Zotero by going to Preferences->Better Bibtex->Export->Fields->Fields to omit from export.

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