Citations and BibTeX editing

Connect a bibliography to the document#

The workshop uses classic BibTeX:

A foundational description appears in~\cite{knuth1984}.
\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{references}

Its references.bib contains:

@book{knuth1984,
  author = {Donald E. Knuth},
  title = {The TeXbook},
  year = {1984},
  publisher = {Addison-Wesley}
}

Invoke completion inside \cite{...}. Search by key, author, title, or year; navigate the selected key back to the entry. Candidate scope follows bibliography resources reachable from the active document, including chapter-scoped resources where applicable.

Edit entries with structure#

Use completion for entry types and fields, Quick Documentation for expected meanings, and the BibTeX Structure view to locate entries. Inspections identify duplicate keys and missing required fields. Formatting and folding help manage larger libraries.

Rename knuth1984 through the IDE and inspect updated citations before applying. Use Find Usages or Safe Delete before removing an entry that may be referenced from another chapter or document.

String macros and attachments#

Named @string macros can be completed and refactored. A macro expression in a DOI or another field may not resolve to a literal value for all health checks; inspect the warning rather than replacing it with an unrelated constant.

Attached PDF paths and external library entries depend on configured sources. Keep library files and attachments reachable on each machine where you want navigation to work.

Separate editor resolution from compilation#

An editor can resolve a citation key while the PDF still shows ? because bibliography passes did not run. Conversely, an existing PDF can contain a citation even while the IDE has the wrong main-file context. Use the correct bibliography processor and rebuild the root to diagnose the compiled result.

Citation completion presents bibliography keys with author, title, and year context. Select the image to view it at full size.