Each document carries its own reference library. You add sources once, cite them in the text, and the formatting follows your chosen citation style automatically, so the bibliography stays consistent however many co-authors are involved.
Add sources to the library
Open the citations dialog from the editor (the slash menu’s Citation command is the quickest route) and use the Add citation tab. You can bring sources in four ways:
- Search OpenAlex: look up published works by title or keyword and add them with their metadata, including the DOI, already filled in.
- Manual entry: enter details yourself for reference types such as journal article, book, book chapter, conference paper, web page, report, or thesis.
- Import .bib: upload a BibTeX file exported from your reference manager.
- Sync Zotero: pull your Zotero library in directly. Connect Zotero first in Settings.
Cite in the text
From the Librarytab, insert any source at the cursor. The in-text citation is rendered in the document’s citation style, and footnote-based styles place the citation in a footnote automatically. You can also copy a fully formatted citation to use elsewhere.
Citation styles
The following styles are available per document:
- APA 7th Edition
- MLA 9th Edition
- Chicago 17th (Notes & Bibliography)
- Vancouver
- IEEE
Switching style reformats your citations; you never retype references by hand.
The bibliography
The Referencespanel shows the formatted bibliography for the document’s sources, with a one-click copy of the whole list. When you export to PDF, a references section is generated and appended automatically; see Export to PDF & Word.