Before adding citations, first set one-or-more bibliographies, either globally with org-cite-global-bibliography, or locally using one or more "bibliography" keywords.

#+bibliography: SomeFile.bib
#+bibliography: /some/other/file.json
#+bibliography: "/some/file/with spaces/in its name.bib"

Org mode uses all the local and global bibliographies combined to search for citation keys.

One can then insert and edit citations using org-cite-insert, called with C-c C-x @.

A citation requires one or more citation key(s), elements identifying a reference in the bibliography.

• Each citation is surrounded by brackets and uses the cite type.

• Each key starts with the character @.

  [cite:@key]
  

• Each key can be qualified by a prefix (e.g. "see ") and/or a suffix (e.g. "p. 123"), giving information useful or necessary for the comprehension of the citation but not included in the reference.

  [cite:see @key p. 123]
  

• A single citation can cite more than one reference ; the keys are separated by semicolons ; the formatting of such citation groups is specified by the style.

  [cite:@key1;@key2;@key3]
  

• One can also specify a stylistic variation for the citations by inserting a / and a style name between the cite keyword and the colon; this usually makes sense only for the author-year styles.

  [cite/style:common prefix ;prefix @key suffix; ... ; common suffix]
  

  When style is not specified, one of the two default styles are used

  • either the default style specified in the CITE_EXPORT keyword (see Citation export processors)

    #+cite_export: basic numeric noauthor/bare
    [cite:@key] is the same as [cite/noauthor/bare:@key]
    

  • or, if CITE_EXPORT is not set, using the default nil style

    [cite:@key] is the same as [cite/nil:@key]
    

The only mandatory elements are:

• The cite keyword and the colon.
• The @ character immediately preceding each key.
• The brackets surrounding the citation(s) (group).

Org currently includes the following export processors:

• Two processors can export to a variety of formats, including latex (and therefore pdf), html, odt and plain (UTF8) text:

  basic

  a basic export processor, well adapted to situations where backward compatibility is not a requirement and formatting needs are minimal;

  csl

  this export processor uses format files written in Citation Style Language via citeproc-el;

• In contrast, three other processors target LaTeX and LaTeX-derived formats exclusively:

  bibtex

  this export processor uses BibTeX, the historical bibliographic processor used with LaTeX, thus allowing the use of data and style files compatible with this processor (including a large number of publishers' styles). It only supports LaTeX's \cite and \nocite commands.

  natbib

  as with the bibtex processor, but using the LaTeX package natbib, allowing more stylistic variants that LaTeX's \cite command.

  biblatex

  this backend allows the use of data and formats prepared for BibLaTeX, an alternate bibliographic processor used with LaTeX, which overcomes some serious BibTeX limitations, but has not (yet?) been widely adopted by publishers.

The CITE_EXPORT keyword specifies the export processor, citation style, and bibliography style; for example (all arguments are optional)

#+cite_export: [export processor name] [bibliography style] [default citation style]
#+cite_export: basic author-year author

specifies the basic export processor with citations inserted as author's name and references indexed by author's names and year;

#+cite_export: csl /some/path/to/vancouver-brackets.csl

specifies the csl processor and CSL style, which in this case defines numeric citations and numeric references according to the Vancouver specification (as style used in many medical journals), following a typesetting variation putting citations between brackets;

#+cite_export: natbib kluwer

specifies the natbib export processor with a label citation style conformant to the Harvard style and the specification of the Wolkers-Kluwer publisher; since it relies on the bibtex processor of your LaTeX installation, it won't export to anything but PDF.

#+cite_export: biblatex numeric,backend=bibtex

specifies the biblatex export processor with the default numeric style and the bibtex backend. Always define the style first and then the rest of load-time options for the biblatex package. Alternatively, you can use the key=val,key=val format for the options as documented in the biblatex package documentation:

#+cite_export: biblatex backend=bibtex,style=numeric

The org-cite-biblatex-options variable in your Emacs configuration uses this format. It will only export to PDF, since it relies on the biblatex processor of your LaTeX installation.

The PRINT_BIBLIOGRAPHY keyword specifies where the bibliography should be printed (note the colon):

#+print_bibliography:

The bibliography printed by the LaTeX-based export processors bibtex, natbib and biblatex has a chapter or section heading by default, while the basic and csl processors print the list of bibliography entries without a heading.

A document may contain more than one PRINT_BIBLIOGRAPHY keywords. Each of the keywords will trigger printing the bibliography.

The keywords can be used with or without additional options. Options can be used, for example, to print only entries that belong to a certain category or to control formatting. The set of supported PRINT_BIBLIOGRAPHY options and their interpretation varies between the different citation export processors. Some export processors do not support passing options.

#+print_bibliography: :keyword algebra :type book

#+print_bibliography: :keyword "algebraic logic" :nottype article,book