support biblatex-chicago in default LaTeX template?

[agoldst]

Hello: I would like to suggest an addition to the default LaTeX templates to support biblatex-chicago. This is a package that supports Chicago Manual of Style in heroic detail (since it is LaTeX it can do much more than the CSL styles for chicago). It can be invoked with \usepackage[style=chicago-notes]{biblatex}, but as the package documentation explains, this leaves a lot of features and tweaks disabled. It is best to invoke it with \usepackage[notes]{biblatex-chicago} (the same package also supports the author-date style from CMS, via \usepackage[authordate]{biblatex-chicago}). This can be done in a custom template or header-include, but biblatex itself must then not be loaded as well (or an option clash LaTeX error results). So I would suggest the following amendment to common.latex:

 $if(biblatex)$
+$if(biblatex-chicago)$
+\usepackage[$for(biblatexoptions)$$biblatexoptions$$sep$,$endfor$]{biblatex-chicago}
+$else$
 \usepackage[$if(biblio-style)$style=$biblio-style$,$endif$$for(biblatexoptions)$$biblatexoptions$$sep$,$endfor$]{biblatex}
+$endif$
 $for(bibliography)$
 \addbibresource{$bibliography$}
 $endfor$

I think it makes most sense to expect that users will also set biblatex: true when they do biblatex-chicago: true, to get the rest of the template language conditioned on that (all of which works fine with biblatex-chicago).

Before I prepared a patch, I thought I'd float this idea here. The idea came to me while updating my own custom template, but I think this simple change in the default templates would offer the feature to users who don't want to customize the template.

Apologies if I've missed an earlier discussion of this. I did search.

All best
Andrew

[jgm]

Note that pandoc will automatically set biblatex to true if the --biblatex command line option is used.

About the general question, I don't know. This is a bit specialized, and maybe a custom template is appropriate, but if enough people wanted this, we could consider it -- or even adding a --biblatex-chicago option.

[agoldst]

Thanks for considering this! Yes, it's somewhat specialized. Let me put my argument in a stronger form. The default pandoc templates are incompatible¹ with the only² viable approach to citation generation for the dominant (and best³) citation style in the humanities. My patch makes them compatible. Isn't that desirable, and not even that specialized?

Side question: am I correct that --biblatex implies biblatex: true but not the converse? Is that intended? I don't think it's documented. I discovered it in the course of working on this that it's possible to use --biblatex at the command line but set biblatex: false in metadata, thus keeping the translation of [@macfarlane2026, 25] into \autocite[25]{@macfarlane2026} but skipping the biblatex-specific parts of templates. That's a desirable behavior, worth documenting.

Also, vis-à-vis custom templating, I observe, as a longtime creator/abuser of custom templates, that it has gotten both harder and more necessary to keep up with LaTeX template updates as pandoc emits more custom LaTeX macros. The refactoring into partials helps a little, but the nested conditionals in default.latex have gotten pretty tricky to parse by eye. I can't really imagine at alternative solution, but I do think the challenge of custom pandoc templates is increasing for LaTeX/PDF.

Footnotes

1. As I said in the OP, technically compatible with the package via biblio-style: chicago-notes, but not with a significant part of biblatex-chicago's functionality. ↩

2. CSL chicago-notes-bibliography and variants do a lot, but far enough. Every time I try I find I need the much deeper support available via biblatex-chicago. In fact, I hypothesize that Chicago-style notes & bibliography are not computable in CSL (but naturally they would be in LaTeX). ↩

3. This personal opinion is correct. ↩

[jgm]

I'd be curious to know more about the limitations of the CSL chicago styles, and whether they can be overcome. (Btw, these styles have very recently had a full overhaul; I don't know if you've tried recent versions.)

[agoldst]

It's been a while since I did more than a cursory check. I'll have to take a look at the overhauled CSL styles. As I recall my previous attempts, complex entries for bibliographic items contained inside other items were particularly tricky (review of..., chap. 3 of..., chapters of volumes of series...), punctuation generally got messy beyond the simple cases, and quite a bit was lost in the mapping from bib(la)tex .bib file fields to CSL. When I can I'll look again.

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On Sat, Jan 10, 2026 at 12:00:38PM -0800, John MacFarlane wrote: I'd be curious to know more about the limitations of the CSL chicago styles, and whether they can be overcome. (Btw, these styles have very recently had a full overhaul; I don't know if you've tried recent versions.) -- Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #11390 (reply in thread) You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Message ID: ***@***.***>