Search BibTeX Files

Due to the format of the BibTeX file, the standard VIM tools for text search lead to suboptimal results. There are several tools around that facilitate searching BibTeX files. If you want a GUI, you could use, e.g., the java-based JabRef – be aware though that JabRef usually resorts your BibTeX files.

The VIM plugin tbibtools, provides a command :TBibList that creates a browsable list of the BibTeX entries including the entry’s ID, its title, its authors or editors, as well as the entry’s keywords. tbibtools includes a ruby-based command-line tool that can be used to sort or merge BibTeX files.

You can use VIM plugins like ttoc to get a quick overview of the entries contained in the BibTeX file opened in the current buffer.