Cite and export references

Pangur handles references in three places. In a draft, you cite works as you write and then format every citation in one citation style. In the library, you copy a formatted reference for an item or a selection. And for other tools, you export references as a file, or give a tool such as Overleaf a private link that always serves the current references.

Citing a work in a draftCopy Anchor Link

A citation in a draft is a link to a library item, written into the Markdown. Its visible label is the short form of the reference, such as "Thomas 1971", and its address names the item and, where there is one, the page. Because the page is stored in the address, you can change the citation style later without losing it.

To cite while writing in Write:

1. Type @ at the start of a line or after a space, then the first words of what you want: an author, a title, a phrase from a highlight.
2. Choose from the list, which offers works from your library, your highlights and your research summaries together.

What Pangur inserts depends on what you chose. A work inserts a citation of the work, labelled with the author's surname and the year. A highlight inserts the highlighted passage as a quotation, followed by a citation with its page, such as "Surname, p. 34"; the page in the citation is the printed page number, which Pangur adds only when it knows it, while the file's own page number is kept separately so that the link opens at the right place. A summary inserts a link to the summary's page in Research.

@ does not start a citation inside code or in an email address, and after 60 characters without a choice Pangur stops treating what you type as a search. Cite on the toolbar that appears when you select text opens the same list, with the citation placed after the selection.

Updating citations and changing the styleCopy Anchor Link

Citations are inserted with a plain label. Update citations formats every citation in the draft in one citation style and can add a bibliography. Nothing restyles itself, so the draft changes only when you press the button.

1. In Write, open the desk's Plan part and find Cited in this draft, which lists each cited work with its number of citations and the pages cited.
2. Choose a Citation style.
3. Leave Add a bibliography at the end ticked if you want one. It is ticked by default.
4. Press Update citations.

Pangur reads the draft's saved sections, not only the one on screen, and fetches the bibliographic data of every cited work from your library. Your browser then formats the citations and rewrites each label in place, section by section, and the changes are saved like any other edit. When it has finished it reports how many citations it updated across how many sections. A draft with no citations is told to use @ to cite, and works that are no longer in the library are listed as not in the library.

Citation styles for draftsCopy Anchor Link

The style list in Write offers six styles:

The style you choose is remembered on your device rather than stored with the draft. Your browser downloads a style's definition the first time you use it and keeps the four most recent, which is why the first use of a style needs a connection.

Drafts are always formatted in British English conventions, with British spelling, "edn." and dates written day, month, year.

Footnotes and the bibliographyCopy Anchor Link

A notes style, such as Chicago (notes and bibliography) or MHRA, moves the citations into footnotes, which Pangur numbers across the whole draft rather than section by section. To change from footnotes back to citations in the text, choose an author–date style and press Update citations again.

The bibliography is written under a "Bibliography" heading at the end of the draft's last section, and each update replaces the bibliography it wrote before. If you leave the last section out of the draft, the bibliography is left out with it.

Copying a formatted reference from the libraryCopy Anchor Link

Outside drafts, you can copy references formatted in a citation style. For one item, open the item, choose Cite this item, pick a Citation style and choose Copy. For several, select them in the library list, choose Cite, and pick a style under Copy citations as.

These menus offer APA, Chicago (author–date), MLA, Vancouver and IEEE. They are formatted by Pangur's server in US English by default, so they can differ in small ways from the same style in a draft. If an item cannot be formatted, Pangur tells you so.

The command line and assistants format references the same way. pangur cite KEY… --style chicago-author-date prints them, and the MCP tools get_bibliography and get_csl_json return formatted references or CSL-JSON (see the command-line reference and MCP tools).

Exporting references as a fileCopy Anchor Link

An export writes references to one file that another reference manager or a LaTeX document can read. Pangur offers four formats:

You can export a selection, a collection or the whole project. For a selection, select items in the library list, choose Cite, then a format under Download as; the file is called references. For a collection, choose Export… from the collection's actions menu, and the file is named after the collection. For the whole project, open the project's settings and choose Export… under Export references; the file is named after the project, and if the project is limited to one collection the export is limited in the same way.

Pangur reads the references from your library at the moment you export, so the file is current. It leaves out notes, attachments, annotations and items in the trash. Items are written in the order they were added, so that BibTeX citation keys stay the same from one export to the next. A Citation Key: line in an item's Extra field fixes that item's key, and Pangur removes its own provenance lines from Extra before writing it.

An export holds at most 10,000 references. A larger project is refused with a message giving that limit, and you export it one collection at a time instead. Pangur also tells you when there are no references to export, or when the export could not be written just now and should be tried again in a minute. The other limits are in Plans, limits and usage.

The command line writes the same files with pangur export refs, for example pangur export refs -f biblatex -c COLLECTION -o refs.bib, and prints to the terminal when there is no -o. Assistants use the MCP tool export_references.

Exporting a whole project with its files, drafts and transcriptions as a ZIP is a different feature, described in Export your work or delete your account.

Private links for Overleaf, Zettlr and scriptsCopy Anchor Link

A private link is a secret web address that serves a project's or a collection's references as a file. A tool that reads a bibliography from an address, such as Overleaf, Zettlr or a script of your own, fetches the current references each time it reads the link, so you do not have to export again after adding a work.

To make one:

1. Open the project's settings and find Private links under Export references.
2. Under Link for, choose The whole project or A collection, and choose the collection if needed.
3. Choose a Format, then Make a link.
4. Choose Copy and paste the address into the other tool.

Each link shows when it was last read, or that it has not been read yet.

The address itself is the only credential, so anyone who has it can read the references without signing in. Pangur stores only a hashed form of the secret part of the address. A project or a collection has one link at a time. Make a new link replaces the address, and Turn off removes the link; in both cases the old address stops working at once and afterwards returns "not found". Pangur may answer a link from a copy up to five minutes old, so a work you have just added can take a few minutes to appear. In an organisation project, a member with the viewer role cannot make a private link. The command line makes one with pangur export link.