How to add URL access date in Quarto pdf references

December 30, 2022

I am trying to add a last accessed field to web references in a Quarto PDF. Here is a minimal example of a qmd file:

---
title: "How to cite a URL with access date"
format: pdf
bibliography: references.bib
---

I am using @stackoverflow1, @stackoverflow2 and @stackoverflow3.

# References

::: {#refs}
:::

This is references.bib:

@online{stackoverflow1,
  title = {Stack Overflow with note},
  url   = {https://stackoverflow.com/},
  year  = {2022},
  note  = {https://stackoverflow.com/, last accessed on 2022-12-30}
}

@online{stackoverflow2,
  title   = {Stack Overflow with urldate},
  url     = {https://stackoverflow.com/},
  year    = 2022,
  urldate = {2022-12-30}
}

@online{stackoverflow3,
  title    = {Stack Overflow with accessed},
  url      = {https://stackoverflow.com/},
  year     = {2022},
  accessed = {2022-12-30}
}

The output is,

As you can see, the note, urldate and accessed fields are all ignored. I have tried using different csl files, e.g. APA and Harvard Educational Review. I have also tried the instructions for doing this in Latex in this and this post. I have also changed @misc to @online. None of these seem to make any difference.

How do you add a date accessed field to a Quarto PDF reference?

Expected output

References

"Stack Overflow", 2022, https://stackoverflow.com/, last accessed on 2022-12-30

>Solution :

You need to tell Quarto to use biblatex using cite-method yaml option.

---
title: "How to cite a URL with access date"
format: pdf
bibliography: references.bib
cite-method: biblatex
biblatexoptions:
  - citestyle = authoryear
---

I am using @stackoverflow1, @stackoverflow2 and @stackoverflow3.

# References

::: {#refs}
:::