Sources and citations

Use your Reader library

Connect Writer to the collection containing yourReader library. Each citable source has CSL-JSON citation metadata with a citekey in csl.id. The manuscript uses that citekey; the source record and its metadata remain in the collection.

Add sources and review their citation data inReader's citation editor. Citekeys must be unique. If a source has no citation data, add it before trying to cite the source in Writer.

Insert a citation

1. Open Sources, or press Ctrl Shift E (⌘ on a Mac).
2. Search by author, title, year or citekey.
3. Select a source, add a page number if needed, and insert its citation.

Sources already cited in the manuscript appear before the rest of the library. The panel marks the source under your cursor and can step through its citations. You can also type @ or [@ in the editor to open source completion suggestions.

A parenthetical citation [@smith2024].

A specific passage [@smith2024, p. 12].

Several sources [@smith2024; @jones2023].

Replace the example citekeys with your own. Hover a citation to inspect its bibliography entry.

Reader quotations

Sources can show quotations from Reader annotations. Insert one to bring the highlighted text into the manuscript with its citation and available page information. Check the quotation and page against the original source before using it in submitted work.

Embedding an annotation recordis another way to use a quotation. Quoted text and commentary stay separate; commentary is not part of the source's words.

Style and language

Choose Citation style and Language in Manuscript settings. Six citation styles and eight locales are bundled. A .csl file in the collection can provide another citation style. The selected style controls author/date or note-style formatting, bibliography entries and repeated citations across all included chapters.

Preview and Word export use the same citation metadata and style, with separate rendering engines. Review both the citation text and bibliography in the final export.

Missing or unknown sources

An unknown citekey appears in Problems and may offer a similar known key. Check its spelling, the selected collection and the source's citation data. Editing a source citekey can leave older manuscript citations unresolved; update those references as well.