I know, this is most likely well documented and has been asked before, so probably I am just overwhelmed by the amount of available information on the issue. I'm trying to install the development version of BibLaTeX (and biber). (In a sense, this is a follow-up to my earlier question).
Environment
- MiKTeX
- Windows 10
What I did:
- Step 0: Update MiKTeX (as administrator and normal user); refresh FNDB.
Step 1: Following this answer, I created a local texmf tree by creating the folder
localtexmf
onC:
and runninginitexmf --register-root=c:\localtexmf initexmf --update-fndb initexmf --update-fndb --admin % probably irrelevant
- Step 2: Created
C:\localtexmf\bin
and added it to myPATH
(before the MiKTeX installation folder), restarted system. - Step 3: Downloaded the binary development version of biber from Sourceforge and extracted
biber.exe
toC:\localtexmf\bin
. (+ Updated FNDB.)
This seems to have been successful; when running biber on my document it reports
INFO - This is Biber 2.7 (beta)
The problematic part is getting the development version of BibLaTeX to run, which should be explained in this answer. However, the development version of BibLaTeX is not available as dtx
/ins
bundle but only as tgz
or tds.tgz
. In the linked answer, the instructions on tds.tgz
are just "check README files" and "extract it to the right place". I tried to find the "right place", but without any success:
- Step 4a: Downloaded
biblatex-3.7.tds.tgz
and extractedbiblatex-3.7.tds.tgz/biblatex-3.7.tds.tar/
to the new local tree. Updated FNDB. Result: New version not recognized (still using version 3.6) - Step 4b: Trying to follow the "Semi-automatic installation" section from the README (included in the
tgz
archive). This refers to a.tds.zip
file which I assume to be identical to my.tds.tar
file. Then, 4b boils down to what I did in 4a. - Step 4c: Trying to follow the "Manual installation" section from the README. This refers to a
.tar.gz
file which I assume to be identical to my.tgz
file. Extracting the files as described in the README (steps 3–5 and 7) and updating the FNDB has the same effect as 4a. - Step 4d: Analogous to step 4a, I tried to extract
biblatex-3.7.tgz/biblatex-3.7.tar
to the local tree (with and without the enclosingbiblatex
folder), without an effect.
Each time I installed/tried to install a new version of BibLaTeX, I deleted all intermediate files created in the by the previous run of LaTeX (to avoid using an old bcf
file). I suppose my directory structure is somehow wrong or that I downloaded the wrong archives. The full error message biber throws is:
INFO - Reading 'document.bcf'
ERROR - Error: Found biblatex control file version 3.2, expected version 3.3. This means that your biber (2.7) and biblatex (3.6) versions are incompatible.
I know that the versions are incompatible, but how can I install BibLaTeX 3.7 (the current development version)?
Update: A very helpful comment by Ulrike Fischer made me realize that there is something wrong with how my roots are ordered: kpsewhich --all biblatex.sty
returns my C:\localtexmf
root as second, after a MiKTeX-maintained root in C:\Users\...
. However, in the MiKTeX Options I cannot move my local tree up (the button is grayed out). According to bug #1952 this is by design, but then I don't understand how to make use of local trees. (I added the tree as non-administrator and are trying to move it as non-administrator. I also tried to move it as administrator, or to add and then move it as administrator.)
tar
file, which is in thetgz
file, to the tree.initexmf -u
andinitexmf --admin -u
), or you have a version which is found first (check the log-file, runkpsewhich --all biblatex.sty
. Also delete before your test old .bcf, .aux, .blg-files to avoid that they interfere.