\usepackage{opcit}: language and commenting

Question

I am writing in German, and we need some kind of "see" before some references in the footnote. (I'm new to footnote-citing). Also, I use overleaf, so maybe this is also a problem.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{opcit}

\renewcommand \idemtext {Ebenda.}

The usual solutions in square brackets do not work with this package. There is also an error when I try this, I'm not sure what does it mean:

And this is what it looks like (I used vspace to bring it together for the screenshot):

Also, for example "and" or "eds." is not translated automatically. Do you have any idea? Thank you very much.

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Your question is not so clear. What is the problem and what is the question ? I also suggest you to write a complete example, so we can run it and try to understand where the problem comes from. — R. N, Dec 23 '20 at 14:37
The opcit package is quite old (last updated in 2006, so 14 years ago). I'm not sure it supports both prenotes and postnotes (i.e., \cite[pre][post]{citekey}), the examples in the manual are only with one type of note. Do you have a reason for using this package? There are also other packages that support footnote citations, most notably biblatex. — Marijn, Dec 23 '20 at 14:49
@Marijn: Write up some comprehensive answer as a Christmas gift. ;) — Werner, Dec 23 '20 at 17:58

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 24 '20 at 08:40

As Marijn says in the comments, the opcit documentation only ever uses \cite with a single optional argument (one for page numbers etc. after the citation, a postnote argument).

A look at the source code of the package indeed shows that it does not support two optional arguments to \cite. So with your current setup, it won't be easy to get the "See" in front of a citation.

As also mentioned in Marijn's comment, the opcit package was last updated in 2006 and does not appear to be actively maintained any more. It might be a good idea to move to a more modern package. For complex citation styles like this, I'd say biblatex is probably the best choice.

A switch to biblatex requires a few changes to your code and a change to your workflow, but should be fairly painless nowadays. See What to do to switch to biblatex?, Biblatex with Biber: Configuring my editor to avoid undefined citations as well as bibtex vs. biber and biblatex vs. natbib for some background.

You may want to have a look at the verbose style family

Once you've found the style that comes closest to what you want, it can be tweaked quite extensively. See Guidelines for customizing biblatex styles for a first overview.

biblatex's citation commands accept up to two optional arguments. One for a prenote and one for a postnote.

\documentclass[ngerman]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber, style=verbose-trad1]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}
\begin{document}
Lorem \autocite[Siehe][180]{sigfridsson}
ipsum \autocite[Vgl.][12]{worman}
dolor \autocite[181]{sigfridsson}
sit \autocite[182]{sigfridsson}
amet \autocite[20]{nussbaum}
consectur \autocite[45]{geer}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

\usepackage{opcit}: language and commenting

1 Answers1