bryanlammon / supra

Use Pandoc to write legal scholarship in Markdown.

Supra

Supra lets you write legal scholarship in Markdown.

About

Supra is a Pandoc wrapper for writing legal scholarship in Markdown. Pandoc is great for academic writing. But there are several aspects of legal scholarship that Pandoc doesn't do well, particularly the innumerable footnotes with oodles of cross-references—i.e., supra notes.

Supra makes Pandoc more useful for writing legal scholarship. Its main feature is a pre-processor that (1) inserts citations for common source types; (2) where appropriate, adds short-form citations to those sources in subsequent footnotes; and (3) adds cross-references among footnotes. Supra can then call Pandoc with an optional custom reference. Finally, a post-processor can edit the file that Pandoc produces, turning footnote cross-references into fields (which can then update automatically), adding an author footnote, and more.

Setup & Usage

For instructions on how to setup Supra, markup a document, and run the program, see the manual.

Changelog

• 0.1.0: Initial release
• 0.1.1: Fixed readme & blank-user journal command
• 0.1.2: Updated documentation
• 0.2.0: Added Pandoc and post-processing functionality
• 0.3.0: Added support for cases and automatic *Id.*s.
• 0.3.1: Fixed date-parts deserializing bug.

supra's Issues

Sources in parentheticals not rendered

Sources in parentheticals do not appear to be processed. For example:

[@AlliedAirFreight1968] at 444 (citing [@UnitedStatesWallace1949] at 794).

Renders only the first source, not the second:

Allied Air Freight, Inc. v. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc., 393 F.2d 441, 444 (2d Cir. 1968) (citing [@UnitedStatesWallace1949] at 794).

Pincites with commas

Pincites that include a comma (e.g., at 550, 551 n.12) are not supported.

This was done so that the lexer would capture citations that end with a comma. The thought was that these were more common than pincites with a comma.

But can the lexer capture both?

*Id.*s with the same pincite

*Id.*s are using pincites even if the previous citation cited to the same page.

If an Id. has the same pincite as the prior cite, it should not render the pincite.

Error messages for missing cross-references

If the input uses a cross-reference that does not exist, the program crashes with an unhelpful error message.

Same pincite in subsequent footnotes

If the same pincite is used in subsequent footnotes, the second one will use a pincite instead of just Id.

Input

Text.^[[@source1] at 1.]

Text.
Text.
Text.^[*See, e.g.*, [@source1] at 1; [@source2] at 2; [@source3] at 3.]

Output

Text.1

Text. Text. Text.2

n.1: Source1, 1 U.S. 1, 1 (2001).

n.2: See, e.g., id. at 1; Source2, 2 U.S. 2, 2 (2002); Source3, 3 U.S. 3 (2003).

Note 2 should start with "See, e.g., id.;".

Error messages for footnote ends

There's an error message for when a footnote does not end with a closing bracket. But the same error is thrown thrown if the footnote ends with a citation that lacks any ending punctuation. The error message should be expanded to address both situations.

Weight-of-authority parentheticals

Weight-of-authority parentheticals (e.g., "per curiam," "en banc") are not rendered.

Typo in readme.md's Makefile

The Makefile example in the readme has an output in markdown format (output.md). It should be a .docx file.

Error deserializing CSL JSON's Date Field

It looks like BetterBibTex's CSL JSON output is storing dates as either strings or integers. The deserializing code expects integers. So the deserializing code needs to account for both types.

*Id.*s ending sentences have an extra punctuation

If (1) a citation is rendered as an Id. without a pincite and (2) the citation ends with a period, and extra period is rendered.

E.g.:

• Input: *Compare* signal.^[Compare [@PlaintiffDefendant2000] at 1002, with [@PlaintiffDefendant2000] at 1002.]
• Expected: *Compare* signal.^[Compare id. at 1002, with id.]
• Result: *Compare* signal.^[Compare id. at 1002, with id..]