Re: [O] org-cite and org-citeproc

[Richard Lawrence]

Hi Eric and all,

Eric S Fraga <address@hidden> writes:

> On Saturday, 28 Mar 2015 at 10:53, Richard Lawrence wrote:

>> I thought I should send an update to let you know that org-citeproc [1],
>> the command-line citation processing tool I've been working on, now
>> supports multi-cites.  I believe that means it is now capable of
>> processing all citations in the basic citation syntax.  It can output
>> plain text, HTML, and ODT (and a Pandoc native format, mostly useful for
>> debugging).
>
> This looks really good!  Thanks.

Thanks!

> However, for some reason, libreoffice doesn't display the citations in
> the ODT document you have included.  I have had a look at the actual ODT
> file and it looks fine.  Can you suggest what may be wrong?  

Hmm, you're right.  I don't have LibreOffice on the machine where I am
working on org-citeproc, but I tested it on another machine (OS X,
LibreOffice version 4.2.8.2 I think), and the citation text is indeed
missing.

As you say, the actual file looks fine to me, and it displays correctly
on Google Drive (which is where I originally tested the output).

So LibreOffice might be where the problem is.  That doesn't mean there
isn't a problem with org-citeproc, or the ODT exporter, but given that
the file looks fine and another viewer handles it correctly, LibreOffice
would be my first suspect.

I don't really know anything about the ODT format, though.  My code
more-or-less blindly pastes Pandoc-generated XML into the document
during Org ODT export.  Can someone who knows more about the format take
a look at the file and see if there is some subtle problem I'm not
noticing?

> A second question: what will be required to use the new cite syntax with
> LaTeX/PDF which will remain my main target for export?

I think this needs more discussion, actually.

The citation syntax can basically be mapped directly to BibLaTeX syntax,
so generating LaTeX that will be processed with BibLaTeX is a simple and
straightforward modification to Org's LaTeX exporter, and compiling the
exported document should continue to require no external programs except
the LaTeX distribution itself.  That is, `C-c C-e l whatever' should
continue to be all that is needed from a user's perspective, plus or
minus some LATEX_HEADER setup.

However, there are a couple of other scenarios to think about:

1) Some people may still need to use plain BibTeX.  Generating LaTeX
that is intended to be processed with BibTeX, as opposed to BibLaTeX, is
a little trickier, because (IIUC) BibTeX does not support multi-cite
citations.  Also, I don't know how easy it would be to capture the other
features of citations (e.g., the in-text vs. parenthetical distinction)
without relying on a package like natbib.  If generating
BibTeX-compatible LaTeX is needed, is it OK to rely on such a package?

2) Some people might find it useful *not* to generate LaTeX citation
commands, and instead have a tool like org-citeproc process citations
instead, with the exporter inserting the rendered output into the
document.  This could be useful if e.g. you are preparing to submit to a
journal that provides a CSL file, but not a BibTeX or BibLaTeX style.

If either of these scenarios represents an important use case, it will
be more work to implement.  

I suggest that for now we just target BibLaTeX, but I'd like to hear
from other people about whether there's reason to do more than that.
 
Best,
Richard