Citations

Writage supports Pandoc-style citations, allowing you to reference sources in your Markdown document and have them rendered as formatted citations in Word, complete with an automatically generated bibliography section.

To use citations you need two things: citation syntax in your Markdown file and a bibliography file (references.bib or references.json) in the same directory.

Citation syntax

Basic bracket citation

Wrap a citation key in square brackets with an @ prefix:

[@smith2023]

This produces a parenthetical citation such as (Smith, 2023) or [1] depending on the selected style.

Citation with locator

Add a comma and a locator (page number, chapter, etc.) after the key:

[@smith2023, p. 42]
[@smith2023, chap. 3]

Multiple citations

Separate multiple citation items with a semicolon:

[see @smith2023, p. 42; @jones2021]

Prefix text

Add text before the first citation key:

[see @smith2023; @jones2021]

Suppress author

Use a dash before the @ to show only the year (useful when the author name appears in the surrounding text):

Smith argues [-@smith2023] that...

Author in text

Place the citation key directly in the text — without brackets — to include the author’s name inline:

@smith2023 argues that...

With a suffix:

@smith2023 [p. 42] argues that...

Bibliography files

Place your bibliography file in the same directory as the Markdown file. Writage will detect it automatically.

BibTeX format (.bib)

@article{smith2023,
  author  = {Smith, John},
  title   = {An Example Article},
  journal = {Journal of Examples},
  year    = {2023},
  volume  = {10},
  pages   = {1--20}
}

CSL JSON format (.json)

[
  {
    "id": "smith2023",
    "type": "article-journal",
    "author": [{ "family": "Smith", "given": "John" }],
    "title": "An Example Article",
    "container-title": "Journal of Examples",
    "issued": { "date-parts": [[2023]] },
    "volume": "10",
    "page": "1-20"
  }
]

Exporting from reference managers

Most reference managers can export bibliography files directly:

• Zotero: select your library or a collection, then File → Export Library → choose BibTeX or CSL JSON format, and save as references.bib or references.json.
• Mendeley Reference Manager: go to File → Export and choose BibTeX format, then rename the file to references.bib.
• EndNote, JabRef, and most other tools also support BibTeX export.

Place the exported file in the same folder as your Markdown file before converting.

Citation styles

The citation style controls how citations are formatted in the output. You can choose from:

Select the style in Writage Settings → Citation Style. See the Settings page for details.

Bibliography section

When a citation style is selected, Writage automatically appends a bibliography section at the end of the converted document. The section uses a Heading 1 style with the title “References”.

Missing citations

If a citation key does not have a matching entry in the bibliography file, Writage will insert the key in the document using the MissingCitation character style so it is easy to spot and correct.

Citations when importing a folder

When using Import Folder to combine multiple Markdown files into a single DOCX, bibliography files are resolved relative to each Markdown file’s directory. Citations are rendered across all files using the same citation style. See Import Folder for details.