Author

Sarah Tanja

Published

April 2, 2025

Modified

October 23, 2025

1 Paperpile reference manager

2 Google docs

3 Quarto docs

You can use Quarto’s project root referencing to flexibly specify the bibliography file relative to your project directory, no matter where the Quarto document is located.

Solution: Use {project} in Your Path

Quarto allows you to reference files relative to the project root using {project}. If references.bib is in your project’s root directory (e.g., inside your Quarto blog repository), use this in your YAML:

bibliography: {project}/references.bib

How It Works

{project} refers to the root directory of your Quarto project, which is usually where your .qmd or _quarto.yml file is located. This ensures that no matter where the .qmd file is located within subdirectories, it will always find references.bib at the project root.

Example Project Structure

{C:\Users\Minerva\Documents\GitHub\quarto-blog\} │-- _quarto.yml │-- references.bib │-- index.qmd │-- posts\ │ ├── post1\ │ │ ├── analysis.qmd <-- This can still find references.bib! │ ├── post2\ │-- styles\

Even if analysis.qmd is inside a nested folder (posts/post1/), using

bibliography: {project}/references.bib

will always point to C:\Users\Minerva\Documents\GitHub\quarto-blog\references.bib.

Why This Is Better

✅ No need for absolute paths
✅ Works across different systems (Windows, macOS, Linux)
✅ More flexible than using ../../ for relative paths

---
title: "Reference management"
subtitle: "Using Paperpile, paperpile-bot, Google Docs & Quarto"
author: "Sarah Tanja"
image: "paperpilebot.png"
draft: true
date: 2025-04-02
date-format: long
date-modified: today
categories: [workflow]
---

# Paperpile reference manager

# Google docs

# Quarto docs

You can use **Quarto's project root referencing** to flexibly specify the bibliography file relative to your project directory, no matter where the Quarto document is located.

**Solution: Use `{project}` in Your Path**

Quarto allows you to reference files relative to the **project root** using `{project}`. If `references.bib` is in your project’s root directory (e.g., inside your Quarto blog repository), use this in your YAML:

`bibliography: {project}/references.bib`

**How It Works**

-   `{project}` refers to the **root directory of your Quarto project**, which is usually where your `.qmd` or `_quarto.yml` file is located. This ensures that no matter where the `.qmd` file is located within subdirectories, it will always find `references.bib` at the project root.

**Example Project Structure**

`{C:\Users\Minerva\Documents\GitHub\quarto-blog\} │-- _quarto.yml │-- references.bib │-- index.qmd │-- posts\ │   ├── post1\ │   │   ├── analysis.qmd  <-- This can still find references.bib! │   ├── post2\ │-- styles\`

Even if `analysis.qmd` is inside a nested folder (`posts/post1/`), using

`bibliography: {project}/references.bib`

will always point to `C:\Users\Minerva\Documents\GitHub\quarto-blog\references.bib`.

**Why This Is Better**

✅ No need for absolute paths\
✅ Works across different systems (Windows, macOS, Linux)\
✅ More flexible than using `../../` for relative paths