Here is a reproducible example of this : The \; will be transformed to ; in canonical mode when activating visual editor.
---
title: "Untitled"
date: "17 2 2021"
output:
bookdown::pdf_document2: default
bibliography: packages.bib
---
```{r}
knitr::write_bib(c("knitr", "rmarkdown"), file = "packages.bib")
```
```{r mtcars, fig.cap="plot1"}
plot(mtcars)
```
See [Figure \@ref(fig:mtcars)\; @R-knitr; @R-rmarkdown]
See [@R-knitr; @R-rmarkdown]
# References