How-to

How to Use natbib for Citations in LaTeX

The fix

To use natbib, load \usepackage{natbib}, set an author-year style such as \bibliographystyle{plainnat}, add \bibliography{refs}, then cite with \citet (textual) and \citep (parenthetical). Compile in the order pdflatex, bibtex, pdflatex, pdflatex.

Example

\usepackage[round]{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{plainnat}
% ... document ...
Text \citep{einstein1905}.
\bibliography{references}

Frequently asked questions

Which bibliography styles work with natbib?

Author-year styles such as plainnat, abbrvnat, and unsrtnat ship with natbib. Many journal .bst files are also natbib-compatible.

natbib or biblatex?

natbib + BibTeX is lightweight and widely required by journals. biblatex is more flexible (Unicode, easy style switching) and uses biber. Follow whatever your template specifies.

How do I get numbered [1] citations with natbib?

Pass the numbers option: \usepackage[numbers]{natbib} with a numeric style like unsrtnat produces [1]-style citations.

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