Allow cross-references to figures/tables in the parenthetical of in-text citations

[isaactpetersen]

I have:

• searched the issue tracker for similar issues
• installed the latest version of Quarto CLI
• formatted my issue following the Bug Reports guide

Bug description

I would like to include a cross-reference to a figure in an in-text citation. For example: "There are three relevant theoretical frameworks (Figure 1; Jones et al., 2023)."

When I type the following:

[@fig-theoretical-frameworks \; @Jones2023]

It creates the cross-reference to the figure but does not create an in-text citation.

Steps to reproduce

[@fig-theoretical-frameworks \; @Jones2023]

Actual behavior

Including a cross-reference to a figure in an in-text citation does not create an in-text citation with the cross-reference to the figure inside the parenthetical.

Expected behavior

Allow including cross-references to figures/tables/etc in in-text citations: e.g., (Figure 1; Jones et al., 2023).

Your environment

• IDE: RStudio: RStudio 2026.07.1+147 "Pacific Dogwood"
• OS: Windows 11

Quarto check output

$ quarto check
Quarto 1.9.38
[>] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: C:\Users\it_petersen\AppData\Local\quarto
[>] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.8.3: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.87.0: OK
      Deno version 2.4.5: OK
      Typst version 0.14.2: OK
[>] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[>] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.9.38
      Path: C:\Program Files\RStudio\resources\app\bin\quarto\bin
      CodePage: 1252

[>] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: (not installed)
      Chromium: (not installed)
      Chrome Headless Shell: (not installed)
      VeraPDF: (not installed)

[>] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Tex:  (not detected)

[>] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
      Using: Chrome found on system
      Path: C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
      Source: Windows Registry

[>] Checking basic markdown render....OK

(\) Checking R installation...........trying URL 'https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/4.5/GPArotation_2026.7-1.zip'
trying URL 'https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/4.5/mi_1.3.1.zip'
trying URL 'https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/4.5/ordinal_2026.7-26.zip'
trying URL 'https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/4.5/RcppParallel_6.1.1.zip'
trying URL 'https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/4.5/SimDesign_2.26.zip'
(-) Checking R installation...........Warning: cannot remove prior installation of package 'RcppParallel'
(/) Checking R installation...........Warning: restored 'RcppParallel'
(\) Checking R installation...........Warning messages:
1: In file.copy(savedcopy, lib, recursive = TRUE) :
  problem copying C:\R\Packages\00LOCK\RcppParallel\lib\x64\tbb.dll to C:\R\Packages\RcppParallel\lib\x64\tbb.dll: Permission denied
2: In file.copy(savedcopy, lib, recursive = TRUE) :
  problem copying C:\R\Packages\00LOCK\RcppParallel\libs\x64\RcppParallel.dll to C:\R\Packages\RcppParallel\libs\x64\RcppParallel.dll: Permission denied
[>] Checking R installation...........OK
      Version: 4.5.3
      Path: C:/R/R-4.5.3
      LibPaths:
        - C:/R/Packages
        - C:/R/R-4.5.3/library
      knitr: 1.51
      rmarkdown: 2.31

[>] Checking Knitr engine render......OK

[>] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.13.13
      Path: C:/Program Files/Python313/python.exe
      Jupyter: (None)

      Jupyter is not available in this Python installation.
      Install with py -m pip install jupyter

[>] Checking Julia installation...

[cscheid]

Yup, totally, that's a real shortcoming of our system. Unfortunately, to be able to do what you want will require us to reimplement everything that Pandoc's citeproc processing does, together with everything that our crossref system does. There's a path for us to get there in Quarto 2, but even there it will be a long journey before we get to it.

In other words, I think we're a couple of years away from this.

[isaactpetersen]

Thanks very much for the helpful and transparent response. I appreciate it. And I totally understand. I'd be glad for this to be considered down-the-line, whenever it is possible. Much appreciated!

[mcanouil]

Duplicate of:

• A few suggestions for cross referencing and text layout #1095

Adding a way to have a cross reference and citation within the same pair of brackets. E.g.: blah blah Foo (1999; Fig. 1). Probably quite specific and not very common so not sure how relevant it is.

Although #1095 is more of a list of issues that includes this one.