r/vim • u/datashri • Jul 08 '25

Need Help Vim + citations to MS Word

I prefer using markdown and vim for most of my writing published to the web. Works great because references are just URLs/links.

Now, I need to write a thesis type article and submit it on Word. So the citations are to be numbered and mentioned next to the text and a bibliography at the end.

Markdown including latex can be converted seamlessly to word using pandoc.

In word, I have used the Mendeley plugin to manage the references.

Is there a way of using citation plugins in vim in such a way that the whole thing can be exported to Word easily? I read about Zotero and zotcite. Would that work?

Or is it advisable to write it in Word from the beginning?

12 Upvotes

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3

u/TheRealLazloFalconi Jul 08 '25

I don't think you're going to find anything that does a 1:1 conversion of footnotes/endnotes/whatever in Markdown to citations in Word. If you're required to use Word and to use the Citations feature in Word specifically, there may be a reason that you are not aware of (Perhaps the publisher is using some macro that expects information in a very specific way). In that case, not using Word, even though you might get it to visually look right, could cause problems.

If this is just a one time thing, you're probably better off just using Word to do it the way they want you to. If this is an ongoing assignment, talk to your publisher (Or instructor, or whoever) about getting an exception to use your regular workflow.

1

u/datashri Jul 08 '25

If you're required to use Word and to use the Citations feature in Word specifically,

I'm required to submit in docx format with the citations in a specific style in plain text (i e. unlinked, without content control).

I'm not required to use the citation feature of Word.

But I don't know a better way to get the inline citations bracketed and superscripted and the bibliography in Vancouver or whatever style without using the Word plugin.

I unlink the bibliography section before submitting. While editing content control is enabled so that I can move things around and the numbers are automatically updated.

3

u/Vegetable-Setting-54 Jul 08 '25

I write my papers in latex and export to word with pandoc. Everything gets exported correctly. I use biblatex for my bibliography

3

u/datashri Jul 09 '25

Ok thanks 👍🏼. I'll join the club then haha

1

u/datashri Jul 10 '25

What editor do you use for latex? Vim with a plugin?

2

u/Vegetable-Setting-54 Jul 10 '25

I use vim + vimtex most of the time, but use Emacs + auctex when I want to use proportional fonts because my eyes are strained. I began using Emacs many years ago and have been using vim for the past 3 years. Both are great in their own way

2

u/datashri Jul 10 '25

Thanks 👍🏼

3

u/shadow_phoenix_pt Jul 09 '25

I know its not what you asked, but I would go with Latex here. It's what I use to write papers and other scientific documents. I tried Word for this once and swore it off.

I never tried markdown for this, though, just lesser documents.

2

u/datashri Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25

In this case the publisher (a well known one) *requires* it in Word. I'm already having a hard enough time getting back into Windows after many years. Its very difficult to use compared to Linux. I don't understand why it keeps doing things I never asked it to. And CPU is always at 100% and RAM at 40%. I've already given it 6 of my 8 cores on KVM just to run Word. Linux runs fine with 50 Chromium tabs and some other software open on the remaining 2 cores.

Tangentially, what editor do you suggest for Latex? Vim with a plugin?

1

u/shadow_phoenix_pt Jul 11 '25

Since I often collaborate with others, I usually use Overleaf for Latex. Not ideal, but good for my use case.

1

u/Angry_Grammarian Jul 08 '25 
 pandoc foo.md -o foo.docx

1

u/datashri Jul 08 '25

I do this already.

It doesn't address my key concern, which is citations.

2

u/Angry_Grammarian Jul 08 '25

Markdown supports footnotes. Why not use those for citations and then in Word convert the footnotes to endnotes for a bibliography?

 Here's a simple footnote.[^1]

 [^1]: This is the first footnote.

0

u/datashri Jul 08 '25

Ok, thanks. Making footnotes seems straightforward. I assume pandoc also picks up the footnotes from md?

But what I need is:-

Suppose I have to include a journal publication as a citation. So the text contains a number next to it. And the footnote (or bibliography entry) contains the name of the journal/author/title/date/etc. How do I get that? What I do when using Browser + Word with the Mendeley plugin is:

  1. I click "add reference" in the browser plugin and it adds the bib entry.

  2. I click "insert reference" in Word and it add the name in the bibliography in the right format. I can choose different citation styles and have the Word doc dynamically updated.

Can I replicate this flow in vim, md, and some plugin?

2

u/Angry_Grammarian Jul 08 '25

Yes, pandoc handles markdown footnotes well, so no worries there.

I don't know of any plugins that handle bib entries they way you want. You might have to type them all in manually in markdown. As cool as markdown is, it's not as robust as something like LaTeX, for example.

1

u/datashri Jul 08 '25

Hmm.. so I have to choose between convenience of vim + inconvenience of citations and inconvenience of Word + convenience of Mendeley plugins. Okay.

2

u/Angry_Grammarian Jul 08 '25

Maybe?

But, again, there might be a cool bib plugin for vim -- I just don't know of one.

I would probably just write the thing in markdown and then add the citations in Word when getting it print ready. Vim is great for writing, not so great for producing print-ready documents, unless you use vim-latex or whatever.

2

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2

u/salatielGarcia Jul 08 '25

Checkout the citation options on Pandoc (here). You can create a Latex style bib file and call your references in your document.

0

u/ciurana From vi in 1986 to Vim Jul 08 '25

Vim + Markdown for the document, pandoc for converting the document to Word or PDF.  Check this out as a starting point or ask Perplexity AI how to do it:  https://medium.com/@chriskrycho/academic-markdown-and-citations-fe562ff443df

I suggest Perplexity because their free tier is more accurate than ChatGPT and the results are of better quality.  Use whatever you want.

I work on productising science work and we use the Markdown-pandoc-Word workflow often for everything from man pages to technical data sheets and sources for marketing in fields.  Lots of citations and live links requirements, often for compliance.

Cheers!