SupraDrop

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Find Bluebook citation errors in your Word document footnotes — automatically, in seconds, without installing anything.

🔗 lawreview.tools/supradrop

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Why this exists

Law review articles live or die by their citations. A misplaced supra note, an ambiguous Id., a Cf. without an explanatory parenthetical — these are the kinds of errors that slip through manual review, especially in a document with hundreds of footnotes. Catching them means reading every short-form citation by hand: tracing each supra back to its original footnote, checking each Id. for ambiguity, verifying every signal has its parenthetical. It takes hours, and even careful editors miss things.

SupraDrop does it for you. Upload your Word document and get a complete list of every citation logic error — with the exact footnote number, the problem, and the Bluebook rule — in under a minute.

What it does

SupraDrop reads your .docx file directly in your browser, scans every footnote, and flags violations of 24 Bluebook citation rules across six categories: supra usage, Id. usage, signal parentheticals, pincites, URL archiving, and hereinafter consistency.

Every finding is marked as either an error (a mandatory Bluebook requirement your document violates) or a warning (a strong Bluebook recommendation worth reviewing). You can then download an annotated copy of your document with Word comments inserted at each problem footnote.

No installation. No account. No upload. Your document never leaves your browser.

The 24 rules it checks

Supra

Rule	Severity	What it catches
SUPRA_NONEXISTENT	🔴 Error	supra note N — but footnote N doesn't exist in this document (R. 4.2)
SUPRA_FORWARD	🔴 Error	supra points to a later footnote — supra must always refer backward (R. 4.2)
SUPRA_TO_SHORT_CITE	🔴 Error	supra points to another supra or Id. — supra must point to a full citation (R. 4.2)
SUPRA_MISMATCH	🔴 Error	The author or title before "supra" doesn't appear in the referenced footnote — the footnote number is likely wrong
SUPRA_WRONG_SOURCE_TYPE	🔴 Error	supra used for a case, statute, or constitution — prohibited by R. 4.2(a); use a short-form citation instead
SUPRA_NO_PINCITE	🟡 Warning	Missing , at [page] when referring to a specific page (R. 4.2)

Id.

Rule	Severity	What it catches
ID_NO_PRECEDING	🔴 Error	Id. appears with no preceding citation to reference (R. 4.1)
ID_AMBIGUOUS	🟡 Warning	The preceding footnote cites multiple sources — Id. is ambiguous about which one it refers to (R. 4.1)
ID_STALE	🟡 Warning	Id. used more than 5 footnotes after the source was first cited — consider a short-form citation (R. 4.1)

Signal Parentheticals

Rule	Severity	What it catches
CF_NO_PAREN	🔴 Error	Cf. without an explanatory parenthetical beginning with a present participle (R. 1.2, R. 1.5)
BUT_CF_NO_PAREN	🔴 Error	But cf. without an explanatory parenthetical (R. 1.2, R. 1.5)
COMPARE_WITH_NO_PAREN	🔴 Error	Compare … with … without a parenthetical on each cited authority (R. 1.2, R. 1.5)
SEE_GEN_NO_PAREN	🟡 Warning	See generally without an explanatory parenthetical — Bluebook strongly prefers one (R. 1.2, R. 1.5)
EG_FORMAT	🟡 Warning	See e.g., missing the required comma after "See" — write See, e.g., not See e.g., (R. 1.1)
SEE_ALSO_NO_PAREN	🟡 Warning	See also without an explanatory parenthetical — Bluebook strongly prefers one (R. 1.2, R. 1.5)
BUT_SEE_NO_PAREN	🟡 Warning	But see without an explanatory parenthetical — Bluebook strongly prefers one (R. 1.2, R. 1.5)

Pincites

Rule	Severity	What it catches
QUOTE_NO_PINCITE	🔴 Error	Direct quotation without a pincite (R. 3.2(a), R. 5.2)
PINCITE_HYPHEN	🔴 Error	Page range uses a hyphen (-) instead of the required en-dash (–) (R. 3.2(a))
PINCITE_UNSHORTENED	🟡 Warning	Ending page not shortened: 1124–1129 should be 1124–29 (R. 3.2(a))
PINCITE_PP	🟡 Warning	pp. before a page number — the Bluebook never uses pp. for pincites; write the page number directly (R. 3.2)

Format

Rule	Severity	What it catches
FOOTNOTE_NO_PERIOD	🟡 Warning	Footnote does not end with a period (R. 1.1)

Internet URLs

Rule	Severity	What it catches
URL_NOT_ARCHIVED	🔴 Error	Internet citation without a perma.cc permanent archive link (R. 18.2.1)

Hereinafter

Rule	Severity	What it catches
HEREINAFTER_FORMAT	🔴 Error	hereinafter appears outside square brackets — write [hereinafter X], not (hereinafter X) or bare text (R. 4.2(b))
HEREINAFTER_NEVER_USED	🟡 Warning	[hereinafter X] is defined but never referenced in any later footnote (R. 4.2(b))

Features

• Severity filter — view All issues, Errors only, or Warnings only with one click
• Smart suggestions — SUPRA_MISMATCH searches the full document and suggests which footnote number you likely meant
• Rule toggling — enable or disable individual rules to match your journal's house style
• Dismiss false positives — mark any issue as dismissed; dismissed items stay hidden but can be reviewed later
• Export annotated .docx — your original document with a Word comment inserted at every problem footnote, ready to share with authors
• Export CSV — a structured table of every issue: footnote number, rule code, severity, and full description
• Export TXT — a plain-text report for quick sharing or printing
• Multiple documents — audit several .docx files in a single session without reloading
• Fully client-side — your documents never leave your browser; nothing is uploaded anywhere

How to use

1. Open lawreview.tools/supradrop
2. Upload one or more .docx files — drag and drop onto the upload area, or click to browse
3. SupraDrop scans all footnotes instantly and displays results in the Issues tab
4. Use the All / Errors / Warnings filter pills to prioritize what to fix first
5. Click any flagged footnote to read the full text and the relevant Bluebook rule
6. Dismiss anything that doesn't apply to your document
7. Download the annotated .docx (with Word comments), CSV, or TXT report

Tip — Rules tab: Each document has a Rules tab where you can toggle individual checks on or off. Useful when your journal follows a house style that differs from standard Bluebook — for example, if your journal doesn't require see generally parentheticals.

Try it with the sample document

This repository includes SupraDrop_TestFixture.docx, a sample Word document with intentional citation errors seeded across all 24 rules. Upload it at lawreview.tools/supradrop to see every check in action.

Requirements

• A modern browser: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge
• A .docx Word document (not .doc or PDF)

Privacy

Your documents are processed entirely in your browser's memory. No file is ever uploaded to any server. No account is required. No usage data is collected.

Part of lawreview.tools

SupraDrop is one tool in the lawreview.tools suite — a free, open-source collection of Bluebook tools for law review editors and legal scholars:

Tool	What it does	When to use it
Zotero Perma Archiver	Auto-archives URLs to perma.cc as you save items in Zotero	While writing
PermaDrop	Batch-archives all URLs in a .docx to perma.cc	Before submission
SupraDrop	Audits citation logic across all footnotes	Before submission
cite.review	Verify citations in legal writing: catch hallucinated authorities before filing	Before submission

Typical workflow: Zotero Perma Archiver while researching → PermaDrop to archive remaining URLs → SupraDrop to catch citation errors → cite.review to verify citations → submit.

License

Copyright (C) 2026 Kirin Chang
Research Fellow, U.S.-Asia Law Institute, NYU School of Law

Licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0.
If you modify this tool and run it as a network service, you must release your modified source code under the same license.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by The Bluebook, Zotero, or perma.cc.