A BibTeX converter turns a BibTeX or RIS entry into a formatted reference in any style, and back again. Paste the entry and the fields are parsed directly, without a database lookup, so the output reflects exactly what your entry says. This is the page to use when you already have an export from a reference manager and simply need it in a different format from the one your journal or department requires.
BibTeX is the LaTeX ecosystem's format and stores each work as a typed record with braced fields. RIS is the interchange format used by EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley and most database export buttons, and stores each field on its own line with a two letter tag. Both are accepted here and either can be produced as output.
Almost every scholarly system will hand you one of these two formats, usually behind a button labelled Cite, Export or Download citation.
The entry is parsed field by field into a normalised record and then rendered in the style you choose. Because the fields come from your entry rather than from a lookup, no network call is involved and the output is entirely determined by what you pasted. If a field is missing from the entry it will be missing from the reference, which is the usual explanation when the result looks incomplete.
Problems here are almost always in the source entry rather than in the conversion, and they are visible if you read the entry itself.
A BibTeX or RIS entry is only as good as the export that produced it, and exports are lossy in ways that are easy to miss until a reference comes out wrong. Understanding where the loss happens tells you which fields to check.
Capitalisation is the classic case. BibTeX stores titles in a form that lets the style decide the capitalisation, which means a title stored as Working memory in humans will be rendered in title case by one style and sentence case by another, and a proper noun such as Alzheimer will be lowercased unless the export wrapped it in braces. Search engine exports rarely bother, so proper nouns in titles are worth checking whenever the output style uses sentence case.
Entry type is the other one. BibTeX decides the entire layout from the type, so a conference paper exported as @article gets formatted with a journal name and volume that do not exist, and a technical report exported as @misc loses its report number. If a converted reference looks structurally wrong rather than merely incomplete, the type is usually the reason.
The same parsed record can be rendered as a formatted reference or exported back out as BibTeX or RIS. This is the round trip most people need: an entry arrives in one format and has to leave in another.
APA 7
Smith, J. A., & Jones, B. C. (2024). Working memory under time pressure. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 36(2), 118-134.
MLA 9
Smith, J. A., and B. C. Jones. “Working Memory under Time Pressure.” Journal of Cognitive Psychology, vol. 36, no. 2, 2024, pp. 118-34.
BibTeX out
@article{smith2024, author = {Smith, J. A. and Jones, B. C.}, title = {Working memory under time pressure}, journal = {Journal of Cognitive Psychology}, year = {2024}, volume = {36}, number = {2}, pages = {118--134}}
RIS out
TY - JOUR / AU - Smith, J. A. / AU - Jones, B. C. / TI - Working memory under time pressure / PY - 2024 / VL - 36 / IS - 2 / SP - 118 / EP - 134 / ER -
This page does not lock the output format. Find the source first, then switch between styles, or start from a style page if your department only ever uses one.
APA
psychology, education and the social sciences
(Smith & Jones, 2024, p. 42)
MLA
literature and the humanities
(Smith 42)
Chicago
history, art history and publishing
1. Jane Smith, Rivers and Empire (Boston: Meridian, 2024), 42.
AMA
medicine
Smith et al reported similar findings.¹
IEEE
electrical engineering and computer science
as shown in [1], [3]–[5]
ACS
chemistry
as previously reported¹
Turabian
undergraduate humanities writing
1. Jane Smith, Rivers and Empire (Boston: Meridian, 2024), 42.
Vancouver
biomedicine
previous studies (1,2) have shown
Harvard
UK and Australian universities
(Smith and Jones, 2024, p. 42)
CSE
biology and the natural sciences
recent work¹ confirms
Both directions work. Paste a BibTeX or RIS entry to get a formatted reference in any of the supported styles, and every generated result also offers .bib and .ris downloads, so the same record can move either way.
No, and it is not trying to be. There is no library, no syncing and no account. If you are managing hundreds of references across a thesis, Zotero is the right tool; this page is for converting one entry when you need it in a different format.
Because the export did not include them. The conversion works only from the fields present in what you paste. If you need the missing details filled in, paste the DOI instead and let the registry supply the full record.
Yes. RIS entries beginning with TY - are recognised automatically, and either format can be produced as output regardless of which one you pasted in.