.\" Manpage for ctanbib.
.\" Contact michal.h21@gmail.com to correct errors or typos.
.TH CTANBIB 1 "2026-05-26" "0.2e" "ctanbib man page"
.SH NAME
ctanbib - retrieve bibliographic information for packages hosted on CTAN
.SH SYNOPSIS
ctanbib [\fIoptions\fP] \fIpackage-name\fP ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
This command can retrieve bibliographic information for TeX packages hosted on
CTAN in the BibTeX format.
.PP
Look up the Catalogue entry for each \fIpackage-name\fP on CTAN (at
https://ctan.org/xml/2.0/pkg/\fIpackage-name\fP), and convert relevant
information to a BibTeX entry.
.PP
By default, the url field in the output entry is the package's home
field value if that is specified in the Catalogue entry; if it isn't, or
if the --ctan option is given, https://ctan.org/pkg/\fIpackage-name\fP
is used. Or, if the --CTAN option is given, the url field is the
package's directory on CTAN (e.g., /macros/latex/contrib/hyperref).

.SH OPTIONS
.IP -c,--ctan
Always use CTAN /pkg/ url instead of the package homepage
.IP -C,--CTAN
Use the package's CTAN path as url (e.g.: /support/ctanbib)
.IP -e,--entrytype
(default manual)  Change entry type
.IP -h,--help
print the help message.
.IP -p,--pkgname
Wrap the package name in a \\ctanbibpkgname command.
This command can be redefined in the document for the desired formatting.
.IP -v,--version
print the version info.

.SH EXAMPLES

.EX
ctanbib latex
.EE
.PP
This minimal invocation will print data using conventional BibLaTeX
fields to standard output:
.EX
@manual{latex,
  title = {The latex package},
  subtitle = {A TeX macro package that defines LaTeX},
  author = {Lamport, Leslie and {The LaTeX Project Team}},
  url = {http://www.latex-project.org/},
  urldate = {2026-05-18}, 
  date = {2025-11-01},
  version = {},
}
.EE
.PP
Note that the output does not use TeX control sequences or have
completely correct capitalization. \fBctanbib\fP works only from the
(plain text) data available from CTAN; any typesetting niceties are up
to you.

.PP
With the --entrytype option:
.EX
ctanbib -e ctan hyperref
.EE
.PP
This produces a bib record with the @ctan type:
.EX
@ctan{hyperref,
  title = {The hyperref package},
  subtitle = {Extensive support for hypertext in LaTeX},
  author = {Oberdiek, Heiko and Rahtz, Sebastian
    and {Oberdiek Package Support Group}
    and {The LaTeX Project Team}},
  url = {https://github.com/latex3/hyperref},
  urldate = {2026-05-18}, 
  date = {2026-04-24},
  version = {7.01q},
}
.EE

.SH SEE ALSO

See ctanbib-doc.pdf (run: texdoc ctanbib) for more details.

.SH AUTHOR

Michal Hoftich
.br
https://github.com/michal-h21/ctanbib

.SH LICENSE

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this software
under the terms of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3
of this license or (at your option) any later version.