free · in-browser · no upload
Drop your NBIB file. We'll convert it to XLSX right here in your browser, your file never leaves your device.
Select your file here to get started
or drop your file here.
Accepts .nbib
How it works
Click the dropzone above or drag a NBIB from your desktop. Files of any size, there's no upload, so there's no upload limit.
The conversion runs entirely in this tab using JavaScript and WebAssembly. Your file never touches our servers, we don't have any.
Get your XLSX the moment the conversion finishes. Convert another, or close the tab.
Your file is never uploaded. The entire conversion runs in your browser using WebAssembly. We can't see what you convert because we have no server to see it.
Server converters cap free users at 1-2 GB and gate larger files behind a paid plan. Since nothing uploads, our limit is whatever your browser can handle.
No account required. No watermark on the output. No queue. Drop a file, get a converted file.
Why convert NBIB → XLSX
PubMed's .nbib export is built for citation managers. If you just want the search results in a spreadsheet to screen titles, dedupe by DOI, or chart publications per year, XLSX is the format that needs zero import steps.
You run a PubMed query, hit Send to, Citation manager, and get a .nbib file. Convert it here and open the XLSX to sort 300 hits by year and skim titles for a literature review.
Some records are missing the journal.
Older PubMed records sometimes omit the full journal tag and only carry the abbreviation. The abbreviation is what gets written. Re-export from PubMed with the MEDLINE format if you need the full title.
"No references found".
The export was likely the summary text format, not .nbib. In PubMed choose Send to, Citation manager (which produces .nbib) and reconvert.
Formats involved
NBIB is the National Library of Medicine's citation format for PubMed exports. Structurally identical to RIS with a different tag dictionary (PMID, FAU, JT, AID instead of ID, AU, JO, DO). Reference managers treat .nbib files as RIS-flavored with PubMed-specific extensions. The format ships with PubMed downloads and the major systematic-review tools (Covidence, Rayyan).
How to open
Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, Papers, all read NBIB natively. Plain text in any editor.
XLSX is the spreadsheet format Excel has used since 2007, like DOCX, it's a zip containing XML for cells, formulas, formatting, and embedded objects. Replaces the older binary .xls format. Read and written by Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, and LibreOffice Calc, with high fidelity for standard cell data and reasonable fidelity for complex formulas and pivot tables.
How to open
Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice Calc. CSV is a more portable format if you only need the raw cell values.
Related tools
FAQ
Yes. No signup, no watermark, no daily file count limit. Every conversion runs in your browser, your file never touches our servers because there are no servers.
Nowhere. The conversion runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript and WebAssembly. Your file is never uploaded to our servers. We don't have any servers handling files, there's nothing for us to log, store, or accidentally leak.
Whatever your browser can hold in memory. Practically, this means a few hundred MB on most computers, significantly larger than the 1-2 GB caps that server-upload converters charge for. Very large files (multi-GB) may require closing other browser tabs first.
PubMed citation export; systematic review imports. Spreadsheets with formulas, formatting, multiple sheets. The most common reason to convert is compatibility, XLSX works in places where NBIB doesn't, or vice versa.
Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, Papers, all read NBIB natively. Plain text in any editor.
Once the page is loaded, the conversion itself runs entirely offline. The first time you use a tool, your browser downloads the conversion library (a one-time cache). If you reload while offline, the page won't load, but you can install the site as a Progressive Web App for full offline use.
Single file at a time for now. Batch conversion is on the roadmap, for now, drop one file, download the result, then convert the next.
