free · in-browser · no upload
Drop your REFERENCES file. We'll convert it to RIS 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 RIS 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 → RIS
You have a paper's References section or a pasted bibliography as plain text and want it in Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote without retyping every entry. This reads a numbered IEEE or APA reference list and produces RIS you can import.
You are writing a related-work section and copied 40 references out of a PDF. Paste them into a .txt, convert to RIS here, and import the file into Zotero so every paper becomes a library item with title, authors, and year.
Some entries were skipped or fields are incomplete.
Free-text references vary wildly, so extraction is best-effort: it reliably pulls title, year, and DOI, and makes a good attempt at authors. Entries with no clear title or year are skipped rather than guessed. After importing, spot-check and fix any that came from unusual formatting. For a DOI list, a DOI lookup tool gives perfect metadata.
Authors split oddly.
The parser handles the two common styles (IEEE "A. Smith, B. Jones" and APA "Smith, J., & Jones, B."). Mixed or non-standard author formatting can split imperfectly; correct those few in your reference manager after import.
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.
RIS is a tagged citation format from Research Information Systems (the Reference Manager company), now an industry-standard interchange. Two-letter tags (TY=type, AU=author, TI=title, JO=journal, etc.), one per line, records terminated by ER. Most academic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, JSTOR, Scopus) export to RIS. Reference managers all import and export it.
How to open
Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, Papers, RefWorks, Citavi, every modern reference manager. Plain text in any editor.
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. Citation interchange between databases and reference managers. The most common reason to convert is compatibility, RIS 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.
