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Document Citation Placeholder Checker

Find citation keys without references—and bibliography entries that were never cited.

Original sources preservedReview before exportSave & reopen projects

Original sources stay unchanged · save your review to keep decisions

Checks explicit [@key], {{cite:key}} or numeric [1] markers plus supported Word CITATION fields against user-supplied bibliography keys. No references are invented, fetched or fact-checked. Reports and decisions are separate from the manuscript.

Using Document Citation Placeholder Checker

Find citation keys without references—and bibliography entries that were never cited.

  1. Open the supported source files or try the worked example. The original files remain unchanged.
  2. Search and filter records. Select a finding to review its evidence and make explicit decisions in Details & settings.
  3. Use Preview to inspect the staged result. Undo and redo are available for settings and review decisions. Save the review project to continue later.
  4. Open Export to download the task-specific result or a portable review report. Reopen document exports in your normal reader before sharing. Keep the original source files with any saved project.

Example

The sample cites Smith2024 and Missing2025. The supplied bibliography contains Smith2024 and Unused2022, so the review shows a match, a missing bibliography key and an uncited reference.

Questions & answers

What can this tool do?

Checks explicit [@key], {{cite:key}} or numeric [1] markers plus supported Word CITATION fields against user-supplied bibliography keys. No references are invented, fetched or fact-checked. Reports and decisions are separate from the manuscript.

Does this upload or overwrite my source files?

Processing is performed in this browser and exports are new downloads. Sources are kept in memory. Review projects contain decisions and source fingerprints, not original source bytes. Public pages retain existing approved ads and optional analytics.

Can I save and reopen the project?

Yes. Save review creates a JSON project. Reopen it with the exact original files; filename and SHA-256 checks prevent applying decisions to different documents. Front matter can reopen without any source files.

What are the limits?

Use up to eight files, 25 MiB each and 80 MiB total. Text imports are limited to 2 MiB. DOCX/EPUB packages are limited to 120 MiB expanded and 5,000 ZIP entries. Exact Word or ebook-reader pagination is not reproduced in the structural preview. Use unsigned, unencrypted source copies.

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