BibDB for Windows is a Windows port of the program "BibDB", previously available for DOS only. BibDB is a program for creating, maintaining and updating literature reference libraries, in a format which is compatible with BibTeX, the standard LaTeX bibliography reference format. BibDB implements a user friendly, point-and-shoot type, mouse-oriented (if available) interface. BibDB also enables extensive search and pattern matching to be carried out. BibDB is highly configurable, to fit personal taste and different bibliography styles.

All this has now changed. With BibDB you now have a user friendly interface to BibTeX citation databases, which allows you to browse through the database, extract selected entries and enter and edit entries in a convenient manner.

BibDB Features:
1. Utilizes a more or less intuitive mouse-and-menu interface, with a minimum of hidden commands to learn;
2. Hides from the user most details of BibTeX syntax and rules;
3. Works directly on your old bibliography files, in both MSDOS and Unix formats;
4. Provides search, display, edit, replace and delete features;
5. Transparently supports LONG FILENAMES when running under Windows 95 and later.
6. Implements a flexible selection Pattern which can hide from the user all entries which do not match the mask. It is also possible to pre-define an entire heirarchy of Patterns, which can be selected via a single mouse click.
7. Maintains your BibTeX files in an orderly human-readable format;
8. Can maintain automatically sorted databases, using a flexible sort criterion. Can also read sorting data embedded in the database files, and optionally write sorting data onto old or new files. Entries and BibTeX strings can be sorted independently;
9. Allows importing and exporting of entries and files in BibTeX, comma delimited (DBase), Tib and Refer formats, as well as exporting in up to 8 user-defined formats;
10. Has extensive connectivity capability, both with other programs on your system and with the Internet:
11. Provides support for generalized hyperlinks embedded in your data. A hyperlink is selectable via the mouse, and can refer to entries in the current or other data files, DDE commands to other Windows programs, calls to the Windows Help Engine, invocations of DOS or Windows programs, or files and Home Pages all over the Internet. Email tags are explicitly supported, either by talking to a MAPI server (Microsoft Mail, Eudora, etc.) or using the WWW browser. In the former case, you can also specify CC and BCC recipients, a subject and the message body, and optionally tell BibDB to programmatically send the mail for you.
12. Is an almost fully implemented OLE client, and supports inclusion of objects into the BibTeX data. Objects can be pasted from or copied to the clipboard, or (for Linked objects) manually defined. Thus BibDB allows to import into a document managed by one application objects which are rendered and/or managed edited by another application, e.g. a spreadsheet which is edited by Excel, while retaining compatibility with BibTeX. BibDB supports both linked objects, which reside in external files, and embedded objects, which are stored in special binary BibTeX fields. The binary data is stored in XXEncoded and (optionally) LZ77 compressed form, so that the database remains a fully ASCII file.
13. Implements full access to the Internet and the World Wide Web via a DDE link to an external WWW browser, such as Netscapes Navigator or Microsofts Internet Explorer. BibDB can invoke the browser to display WWW pages and other Internet documents, as well as to download files. Moreover, BibDB enables to transparently download database files from the Internet directly into BibDB.
14. Allows bi-directional cut/copy/paste of entire BibTeX entries between BibDB and any text-based application, e.g. an editor, as well as between different BibDB instances. Pasting will work on any of the importable file formats. Also allows import of multiple entries from the clipboard, and export to the clipboard, as well as to and from files.
15. Provides full Windows clipboard support for both images (bitmaps and metafiles) and objects.
16. Operates as a full DDE client and server for interaction with other Windows programs;
17. Supports Drag-and-Drop from the File Manager and other servers;
18. Supports image files, currently in .BMP, .PCX, .GIF, .TGA (Targa) and (with an external DLL) .JPG (JPEG) formats. It also supports .WMF Windows metafiles and icons in .ICO, .EXE and .DLL files. Additionally, BibDB can make use of external graphic filters, such as those supplied with Word for Windows, DviWin, and some other programs, to import a large variety of graphics file formats other than the internally rendered ones. Images are treated as objects, except that they are rendered internally rather than by a server.
19. Supports embedded images. These are images which were read in using one of the supported formats, and then stored in a special binary BibTeX field. The format is the same one used for embedded objects, and maintains both BibTeX compatibility and the ASCII nature of the database file.
20. Supports the @STRING and @PREAMBLE constructs, and automatically resolves abbreviations contained in @STRINGs and in .BST BibTeX style files.
21. Supports printing to any Windows printer;
22. Allows creation of a logical database made up of several individual database files via a link mode;
23. Provides extensive support for multi-lingual files. Files can be automatically and transparently converted from 7-bit mode (i.e. accented characters being represented by TeX codes) to 8-bit mode (i.e. accented characters being represented by high bit, extended ASCII characters) and vice versa. You can thus maintain your files in conventional TeX format, while still using full 8-bit capabilities within BibDB. BibDB can also translate files between the 7-bit TeX and 8-bit modes and between different 8-bit encodings;
24. Operates on files with up to 64K entries. That size file will strain your patience though;
25. Almost all features can be controlled via a configuration file. In particular, the configuration file allows the user to completely specify the display format of entries on screen. BibDB can also be configured for databases other than bibliography ones (hint, hint).

SoftSea Editor's Note: this program can't support Windows Vista/7 (64bit).

The license of this software is Freeware, you can free download and free use this database management software.