ASTROBIB FOR THOSE IN A HURRY
                    -----------------------------

1. Choose the document style, for example using astrobib and AAS macros together:
     \documentstyle[12pt,aasms,astrobib]{article}	

2. Choose the bibliography style, for example, for ApJ:
     \bibliography{apjmnemonic,mybib}	
     \bibliographystyle{apj}
   
   This tells bibtex and latex to look for the following files, the first two
   of which are probably installed in a system directory somewhere:
     apjmnemonic.bib  -- provided with astrobib
     apj.bst          -- provided with astrobib
     mybib.bib        -- Your database, created as described below

3. Cite papers in your text, using commands like the following:

   Command            example of output       Description
   -------            -----------------       -----------
   \nocite{key}                               Quietly adds to the reference list
   \cite{key}         (Brown 1978)            In parentheses
   \citeNP{key}       Brown 1978              No parentheses
   \citeN{key}        Brown (1978)            parentheses around year only

   There are other commands for those not in a hurry. Read the users' guide.
   If you are using pure bibtex, 'key' is something like "Brown1978" Otherwise,
   'key' is some combination of authors and year, or practically anything else
   in the database, e.g. \cite{Brown 1978}, or \cite{Sandage, Freeman, and
   Stokes 1970}. The getref software converts these citations into bibtex
   'keys,' ignoring commas, amperstands, and the word "and" (but not et al.).

4. Keep your bibliography in an ascii file (call it something like mybib.refer),
   with blank lines separating the different references:

   %A Brown J.
   %D 1978
   %R preprint

   %A Sandage A.
   %A Freeman K. C.
   %A Stokes N. R.
   %D 1970
   %J ApJ
   %V 160
   %P 831
   
   %A Tammann G.
   %D 1994
   %S ESO/OHP Workshop on Dwarf Galaxies
   %E Meylan G.
   %E Prugniel P.
   %I ESO
   %C Garching
   %P 3

5. Process your paper with the following commands, best kept in a shell script:
   ref_to_tex mybib.refer
   getref paper.tex mybib.kf >paper_b.tex
   latex  paper_b
   bibtex paper_b
   latex  paper_b
   latex  paper_b

5b. For those using unadulterated bibtex, ignore step 4. Create mybib.bib as a 
   standard bibtex database, and skip the first two commands of step 5.