ISBN to ACS Citation Converter

What is an ISBN?

An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) identifies one specific edition and format of a published book. ISBN-13 is the current standard – 13 digits beginning with 978 or 979 – while older books also carry a 10-digit ISBN-10. Both work here, with or without hyphens. You will find the number above the barcode on the back cover or on the copyright page behind the title page. When you paste an ISBN into CiteTools, we look the book up in Google Books, then in Open Library, and pull the fields a book citation needs: authors or editors, full title and subtitle, publisher, publication year, and edition. That is the tedious part of citing a book done for you; the formatter then applies the punctuation, capitalization, and author-name rules of the style you select.

How the ISBN to ACS conversion works

1. Find the ISBN above the barcode or on the copyright page and paste it in – hyphens optional.
2. CiteTools looks the book up in Google Books, then in Open Library.
3. Copy the finished book citation with publisher, year, and edition included.

Example input:

9780262033848

About ACS Style

American Chemical Society - used in chemistry and related sciences.

ACS style, from the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication, is the system of the American Chemical Society journals and of many chemistry courses. Authors are inverted and separated by semicolons, the journal name is set in italics, the year is bold, and the volume is italic. Since the 2025 revision the journal name may stay in full and a title may keep its published capitals. CiteTools prints both as the record gives them and never shortens a journal name. The entry closes with the DOI as an https://doi.org address.

Frequently asked questions