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
• cite_inline - Whether or not to render citations inline, requires csl_file to be specified. Defaults to False.

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.

Debugging

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

(...)
DEBUG   -  Parsing bibtex file 'docs/bib/papers.bib'...
INFO    -  SUCCESS Parsing bibtex file 'docs/bib/papers.bib'
DEBUG   -  Downloading CSL file from URL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/citation-style-language/styles/master/apa-6th-edition.csl to temporary file...
INFO    -  CSL file downladed from URL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/citation-style-language/styles/master/apa-6th-edition.csl to temporary file (<tempfile._TemporaryFileWrapper object at 0x00000203E4F2F650>)
(...)
DEBUG   -  Reading: publications.md
DEBUG   -  Running 2 `page_markdown` events
DEBUG   -  Formatting all bib entries...
DEBUG   -  --Converting bibtex entry 'foo2019' with CSL file 'docs/bib/apa_verbose.csl' using pandoc>=2.11
DEBUG   -  --SUCCESS Converting bibtex entry 'foo2019' with CSL file 'docs/bib/apa_verbose.csl' using pandoc>=2.11
DEBUG   -  --Converting bibtex entry 'bar2024' with CSL file 'docs/bib/apa_verbose.csl' using pandoc>=2.11
DEBUG   -  --SUCCESS Converting bibtex entry 'bar2024' with CSL file 'docs/bib/apa_verbose.csl' using pandoc>=2.11
INFO    -  SUCCESS Formatting all bib entries
DEBUG   -  Replacing citation keys with the generated ones...
DEBUG   -  --Rendering citation inline for '[@foo2019]'...
DEBUG   -  ----Converting pandoc citation key '[@foo2019]' with CSL file 'docs/bib/apa_verbose.csl' and Bibliography file '(...)/tmpzt7t8p0y/temp.bib'...
DEBUG   -  ----SUCCESS Converting pandoc citation key '[@foo2019]' with CSL file 'docs/bib/apa_verbose.csl' and Bibliography file '(...)/tmpzt7t8p0y/temp.bib'
DEBUG   -  --SUCCESS Rendering citation inline for '[@foo2019]'
DEBUG   -  --Rendering citation inline for '[@bar2024]'...
DEBUG   -  ----Converting pandoc citation key '[@bar2024]' with CSL file 'docs/bib/apa_verbose.csl' and Bibliography file '(...)/tmpzt7t8p0y/temp.bib'...
DEBUG   -  ----SUCCESS Converting pandoc citation key '[@bar2024]' with CSL file 'docs/bib/apa_verbose.csl' and Bibliography file '(...)/tmpzt7t8p0y/temp.bib'
DEBUG   -  --SUCCESS Rendering citation inline for '[@bar2024]'
DEBUG   -  SUCCESS Replacing citation keys with the generated ones