mkdocs-bibtex

A MkDocs plugin for citation management using bibtex.

Setup

Install the plugin using pip:

pip install mkdocs-bibtex

Note: This plugin requires pandoc to be installed on your system.
If you're having trouble with pandoc, try installing the conda-forge version of pypandoc: conda install -c conda-forge pypandoc which will install a version with built in pandoc binaries

Next, add the following lines to your mkdocs.yml:

plugins:
  - search
  - bibtex:
      bib_file: "refs.bib"
markdown_extensions:
  - footnotes

The footnotes extension is how citations are linked for now.

If you have no plugins entry in your config file yet, you'll likely also want to add the search plugin. MkDocs enables it by default if there is no plugins entry set.

Options

• bib_file - The path or url to a single bibtex file. Path can either be absolute or relative to mkdocs.yml. Example URL: https://api.zotero.org/*/items?format=bibtex
• bib_dir - Directory for bibtex files to load, same as above for path resolution
• bib_command - The syntax to render your bibliography, defaults to \bibliography
• bib_by_default - Automatically append the bib_command at the end of every markdown document, defaults to true
• full_bib_command - The syntax to render your entire bibliography, defaults to \full_bibliography
• csl_file - The path or url to a bibtex CSL file, specifying your citation format. Defaults to None, which renders in a plain format. A registry of citation styles can be found here: https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles

Usage

In your markdown files:

1. Add your citations as you would if you used pandoc, IE: [@first_cite;@second_cite].
2. Add \bibliography, or the value of bib_command, to the doc you want your references rendered (if bib_by_default is set to true this is automatically applied for every page).
3. (Optional) Add \full_bibliography, or the value of full_bib_command, to where you want the full bibliography rendered. Note: This is currently not working properly, since this plugin can't dictate the order in which files are processed. The best way to ensure the file with the full bibliography gets processed last is to use numbers in front of file/folder names to enforce the order of processing, IE: 01_my_first_file.md
4. (Optional) Configure the csl_file option to dictate the citation text formatting. This plugin automatically detects if the citation is an inline style and inserts that text when appropriate.

Debugging

You can run mkdocs with the --strict flag to fail building on any citations that don't exist in the bibtex file.

You may wish to use the verbose flag in mkdocs (-v) to log debug messages. You should see something like this

(...)
DEBUG   -  Reading markdown pages.
DEBUG   -  Reading: index.md
DEBUG   -  Running `page_markdown` event from plugin 'bibtex'
WARNING -  Citing unknown reference key nonexistent
DEBUG   -  Converting with pandoc:
DEBUG   -   ---
           link-citations: false
           ---

           0. [@test]

           1. [@nonexistent]

           2. [@test, see pp. 100]

           3. [see @test, pp. 100, 200]

           # References

[WARNING] Citeproc: citation nonexistent not found

DEBUG   -  Pandoc output:
DEBUG   -  0.  ^1^

           1.  ^**nonexistent?**^

           2.  ^1,\ see\ pp. 100^

           3.  ^see\ 1^

           # References {#references .unnumbered}

           :::: {#refs .references .csl-bib-body entry-spacing="0" line-spacing="2"}
           ::: {#ref-test .csl-entry}
           [1. ]{.csl-left-margin}[Author, F. & Author, S. Test title. *Testing
           Journal* **1**, (2019).]{.csl-right-inline}
           :::
           ::::
DEBUG   -  Inline cache: {'[@test]': '^1^', '[@nonexistent]': '^**nonexistent?**^', '[@test, see pp. 100]': '^1,\\ see\\ pp. 100^', '[see @test, pp. 100, 200]': '^see\\ 1^'}
DEBUG   -  Reference cache: {'test': 'Author, F. & Author, S. Test title. *Testing Journal* **1**, (2019).'}
WARNING -  Error formatting citation nonexistent: 'nonexistent'
DEBUG   -  Markdown:
           # This is an example of how to use the mkdocs-bibtex plugin

           ## Citation

           Citation [^test]

           ## Non existing citation

           This should fail on --strict mode

           Citation

           ## Citation with affix

           Citation [^test]

           ## Citation with multiple affixes

           Citation [^test]


           ## Bibliography

           [^test]: Author, F. & Author, S. Test title. *Testing Journal* **1**, (2019).
DEBUG   -  Reading: full_bib.md
(...)