quarto-dev / quarto-dev/quarto-cli

Inconsistent or absent bibliography heading across formats

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bibliography enhancement
Dominant language
JavaScript
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

I have:
  • searched the issue tracker for similar issues
  • installed the latest version of Quarto CLI
  • formatted my issue following the Bug Reports guide
Bug description

Different output formats either create or do not create a references/bibliography section header by default, and may give it different names.

Some formats allow you to customize the name via a heading before ::: {#refs}; others do not (because ::: {#refs} is a Pandoc feature, it cannot be used in some formats, like Typst without citeproc; see #8710).

Overall, this makes it harder to render to multiple formats or change between formats.

Steps to reproduce

Base document:

---
bibliography: refs.bib
---

The Metropolis-Rosenbluth-Teller -@metropolis1953 algorithm uses a symmetric proposal.

In refs.bib:

@article{metropolis1953,
    title={Equation of state calculations by fast computing machines},
    author={Metropolis, Nicholas and Rosenbluth, Arianna W and Rosenbluth, Marshall N and Teller, Augusta H and Teller, Edward},
    journal={The Journal of Chemical Physics},
    volume={21},
    number={6},
    pages={1087--1092},
    year={1953},
    publisher={American Institute of Physics}
}
Actual behavior
  • HTML: heading titled "References"
format: html
  • LaTeX, using citeproc: no bibliography heading created
format: pdf
  • LaTeX using natbib: heading titled "References"
format: pdf
cite-method: natbib
  • Typst default: heading titled "Bibliography" (not customizable)
format: typst
  • Typst with citeproc: no heading created
format: typst
citeproc: true
Expected behavior
  1. The default Typst bibliography heading perhaps should. be "References" to match TeX. This is an easy fix for which I am happy to submit a PR if desired.

  2. Perhaps when citeproc: true, Quarto could insert the following at the end of the document before handing off to Pandoc, if no ::: {#refs} already exists, so that the behavior is more consistent with other methods. Of course this won't work on Typst until #8710 is resolved.

# References

::: {#refs}
:::
Your environment
  • OS: MacOS 15.6
  • IDE: none
Quarto check output
Quarto 1.7.29
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /Users/cmccartan/Library/Caches/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.6.3: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.85.1: OK
      Deno version 1.46.3: OK
      NOTE: Typst version 0.13.1 does not strictly match 0.13.0 and strict checking is enabled. Please use 0.13.0.
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.7.29
      Path: /Applications/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: (external install)
      Chromium: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: TinyTex
      Path: /Users/cmccartan/Library/TinyTeX/bin/universal-darwin
      Version: 2025

[✓] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
      Using: Chrome found on system
      Path: /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome
      Source: MacOS known location

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.9.6
      Path: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/python3
      Jupyter: (None)

      Jupyter is not available in this Python installation.
      Install with python3 -m pip install jupyter

[✓] Checking R installation...........OK
      Version: 4.5.0
      Path: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources
      LibPaths:
        - /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/library
      knitr: 1.50
      rmarkdown: 2.29

[✓] Checking Knitr engine render......OK

Contributor guide

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First steps

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  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the supplied QMD example across HTML, PDF with citeproc and natbib, and Typst with and without citeproc. Trace the Quarto bibliography-rendering entry points and compare the generated headings; done means the supported formats use consistent, documented bibliography heading behavior without breaking existing customization.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, latex
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

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