How to change citation style in biblatex in R Markdown?

Question

When citation_package: biblatex is included in the YAML of an .Rmd file, is it possible to specify the citation style? I can't find any information on this in the various R markdown manuals.

Answer 1

This issue was resolved in March 2016. As a lot of the documentation was written before this, it doesn't always show up in the guidance. However, the NEWS file on rmarkdown is always a good place to check for new features.

You can use the biblio-style argument within the YAML. If you are familiar with latex, this is basically filling in the \usepackage[style= *SELECTED STYLE*]{biblatex}. Here is an example. It will build a separate .bib file for you:

---
output: 
  pdf_document:
    citation_package: biblatex
keep_tex: TRUE
bibliography: test.bib
---

```{r}
knitr::write_bib(x = c("knitr", "rmarkdown") , file = "test.bib")
```

Some ref [@R-knitr]

Another ref [@R-rmarkdown]

# References

This outputs:

Adding the biblio-style argument:

---
output: 
  pdf_document:
    citation_package: biblatex
keep_tex: TRUE
bibliography: test.bib
biblio-style: authoryear
---

```{r}
knitr::write_bib(x = c("knitr", "rmarkdown") , file = "test.bib")
```

Some ref [@R-knitr]

Another ref [@R-rmarkdown]

# References

To find out more about different styles you can use, check here: https://www.sharelatex.com/learn/Biblatex_citation_styles

Taking this further: the YAML only provides a certain amount of control of the biblio-style. For example, you cannot specify citestyle directly. if you want to go further with changing the biblatex style, you will need to edit the pandoc template: https://github.com/rstudio/rmarkdown/blob/master/inst/rmd/latex/default-1.15.2.tex . This is a bit more advanced though, so only recommend it if you are comfortable with LaTex: https://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/pdf_document_format.html#custom_templates