rehype-cite

The rehype-cite package is a rehype plugin adding support for inline citations and bibliographies.

For now, rehype-cite is not capable of producing citations that adhere strictly to well-known bibliography formats like APA, MLA, IEEE, etc.. You should only use rehype-cite in non-academic contexts like blog posts or note-taking.

[!IMPORTANT] If you have strict formatting requirements, consider using rehype-citation or citeproc-js instead, for compatibility with the Citation Style Language.

Installation

npm install @benrbray/rehype-cite

Usage

const bibFile = `
@book{riehl2017:category,
  title={Category theory in context},
  author={Riehl, Emily},
  year={2017},
  publisher={Courier Dover Publications},
  url={https://store.doverpublications.com/048680903x.html}
}
`;

const processor = unified()
  .use(remarkParse)
  .use(remarkMath)
  .use(remarkCite)
  .use(remarkRehype)
  .use(rehypeKatex)
  .use(rehypeCite, { bibFiles : [bibFile] })
  .use(rehypeStringify);

const markdown = "[@riehl2017:category]";
const result: string = processor.processSync(markdown).toString();

Goals

When using rehype-cite, you will quickly notice that the citations produced by rehype-cite do not adhere to any standard citation format (such as APA, MLA, Harvard, etc.).

Existing JavaScript libraries for citation rendering (such as citation-js and citeproc-js) support a great many citation styles in CSL format, but unfortunately are designed to produce only strings rather than structured output like HTML or JSON. This makes it difficult to add interactivity such as hyperlinked titles to bibliography entries.

Instead, rehype-cite includes a custom formatter which produces structured output convenient for styling, hyperlinking, and further postprocessing of bibliography data. The final citations are "good enough" for use in contexts like blog posts or personal notes, but should not be used in formal academic contexts.

Writing a Custom Formatter (experimental)

In addition to the built-in formatter, rehype-cite includes a DSL for writing new formatters.

Resources

• BibLaTeX Cheat Sheet