free · in-browser · no upload
Drop your REFERENCES file. We'll convert it to BibTeX right here in your browser, your file never leaves your device.
Select your file here to get started
or drop your file here.
Accepts .txt
How it works
Click the dropzone above or drag a REFERENCES 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 BibTeX 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 Reference List → BibTeX
You are writing in LaTeX or Overleaf and need a .bib file, but your sources are a plain-text reference list copied from a paper or a colleague. Convert the list to BibTeX entries you can drop straight into your bibliography.
A co-author sends their references as a numbered text list. Convert to BibTeX here, paste into your references.bib, and cite with \cite{} keys instead of re-entering each paper by hand.
Citation keys are generic.
Keys are generated from a simple counter when the reference has no obvious key. Rename them to your preferred scheme (authorYear) after import; the title, author, and year fields are what matter for the entry.
An entry was skipped.
Lines with no recognizable title or author+year are skipped instead of producing a broken entry. Reformat that reference (give it a clear title and year) and convert again.
Formats involved
REFERENCES is a file format we support converting. Detailed format information is being added, for now, drop your file in the converter above and you'll get the conversion you came for.
How to open
Most operating systems open this format with a default application; if not, search for a free reader/viewer for the format.
BibTeX is the de facto bibliography format for LaTeX since 1985, plain-text entries like @article{key, author={...}, title={...}, journal={...}, year={2024}}. Used by every academic publisher's LaTeX template and supported as an import/export format by Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, and Papers. Strengths: trivially diff-able in git, scriptable, tooling-rich. Weakness: there's no single canonical spec, so different parsers handle edge cases (special characters, cross-references, @string macros) inconsistently.
How to open
Any text editor (the format is plain text). Reference managers like Zotero, Mendeley, JabRef, BibDesk all read and write it natively.
You may also need
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.
File interchange. Academic citations in LaTeX papers; reference-manager export. The most common reason to convert is compatibility, BibTeX works in places where REFERENCES doesn't, or vice versa.
Most operating systems open this format with a default application; if not, search for a free reader/viewer for the format.
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.
