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BibTeX ⇄ RIS converter

Paste BibTeX entries or RIS records and convert in either direction — the format is auto-detected. Copy the result or download a ready-to-import .ris/.bib file. Free, no signup.

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When to use this

BibTeX and RIS are the two file formats your references travel in. You need a converter at every toolchain boundary: a co-author writes in Word with EndNote (RIS world) while you write in LaTeX (BibTeX world); a journal's export button only offers one of the formats; you are migrating a library between Zotero, Mendeley or RefWorks and a .bib-based workflow; or a systematic-review screening tool exports RIS that your typesetting pipeline cannot read. This converter parses each entry properly (it is the same import engine Kahubi's library uses, built on citation-js) rather than doing line-by-line text substitution, so author names, entry types and DOIs map to the correct fields in the other format.

What converts cleanly

Standard entry types: articles, books, chapters, conference papers, theses, reports, preprints, web pages.
Core fields: title, authors (with name order preserved), year, journal/venue, DOI, URL, abstract.
Multiple entries at once — paste a whole .bib or .ris file.
Both "Last, First" and "First Last" author spellings.

Common mistakes

Pasting a formatted bibliography (plain text citations) — the converter needs structured BibTeX or RIS, not APA-formatted text.
Forgetting that LaTeX markup inside BibTeX fields ({\"u}, math mode) has no RIS equivalent and is simplified.
Importing the converted file without spot-checking entry types — "misc" entries in particular deserve a look.

Frequently asked questions

When do I need RIS, and when BibTeX?

RIS is the lingua franca of reference managers: EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, RefWorks and most journal "export citation" buttons read and write it. BibTeX (.bib) is the native format of the LaTeX/BibTeX/biblatex toolchain and of tools like Overleaf and JabRef. Moving a library from a reference manager into a LaTeX project means RIS (or a direct export) → BibTeX; sharing a .bib file with an EndNote user means BibTeX → RIS.

Will all fields survive the conversion?

The common scholarly fields do: type, title, authors, year, journal/venue, DOI, URL and abstract. The two formats are not perfectly aligned, though — BibTeX-specific fields (custom keys, notes, LaTeX markup) and rarely used RIS tags have no exact counterpart and may be simplified. Always spot-check a couple of entries after converting.

Is my reference list stored anywhere?

No. The text is parsed in memory to perform the conversion and the result is returned to your browser — nothing is saved, logged into a database, or used for anything else.

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