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Cross-References

MergDown2TeX adds bidirectional navigation between citations.

How it works

graph LR
    A[Text] -->|↑| B[Citation]
    B -->|↓| C[Bibliography]

Features

Bidirectional arrows

In text: 

As shown by \citep{smith2020}... ↑

In bibliography: 

\textbf{Smith, J. (2020).} Important Research. ↓

  • Click ↑ in text → Jump to citation in bibliography
  • Click ↓ in bibliography → Jump to citation in text

Implementation

Text navigation

As shown by \citep{smith2020}... \hyperlink{smith2020}{↑}

Bibliography navigation

\hypertarget{smith2020}{\textbf{Smith, J. (2020).} Important Research.} \hyperlink{smith2020}{↓}

Configuration

Enable/disable

---
citationNavigation: true
---

Arrow style

---
arrowStyle: "↑↓"
---

Options: - ↑↓ (default) - ↗↙ - →←

Example

Input

---
title: "Research Paper"
bibliography: references.bib
---

# Introduction

This paper cites @smith2020.

# Bibliography

Output

\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage{cite}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\title{Research Paper}

\begin{document}

\section{Introduction}
This paper cites \citep{smith2020}... \hyperlink{smith2020}{↑}

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{references}

\end{document}

In references.bib: 

\hypertarget{smith2020}{\textbf{Smith, J. (2020).} Important Research.} \hyperlink{smith2020}{↓}

Troubleshooting

Arrows not appearing

Error: 

Citation navigation not working

Solution: - Check citationNavigation: true in YAML - Verify hyperref package is loaded - Run pdflatex 3 times

Error: 

Hyperlink not found

Solution: - Check citation key matches - Verify hyperref package is loaded - Rebuild PDF

Block Cross-References (DOCX Support)

MergDown2TeX now supports cross-referencing blocks like Tables, Equations, and Figures, with proper hypertargets and labels functioning correctly in DOCX outputs.

Adding Anchors to Blocks

To enable cross-referencing, add a specific anchor directly after the block. The anchor must be on the immediate next non-empty line.

Tables: 

| Col 1 | Col 2 |
|-------|-------|
| Val 1 | Val 2 |
^table--block-my-table

Equations: 

$$
E = mc^2
$$
^eq--block-einstein

Figures: 

![Image](path/to/image.png)
^figure--block-my-figure

Referencing Blocks

You can reference these blocks anywhere in your Markdown using standard Obsidian internal links: - [[#^table--block-my-table]] - [[#^eq--block-einstein]] - [[#^figure--block-my-figure]]

These will automatically be compiled into proper LaTeX \label{...} and \hypertarget{...} tags, ensuring correct numbering and cross-referencing in generated PDF and DOCX files.

Next steps