RIS to BibTeX Converter

Convert RIS records to BibTeX entries in seconds. Paste an export from EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, Scopus, or Web of Science and copy a clean .bib entry.

Paste an RIS record to get a BibTeX entry

Why convert RIS records to BibTeX

Databases and reference managers export RIS, while LaTeX needs BibTeX. CiteTools maps each RIS tag onto its BibTeX field: AU lines become the author list, TI the title, JO or T2 the journal, SP and EP the page range, and PY the year. Paste several records and each one becomes its own entry. The citation key is built from the first author, the year, and the first main word of the title, so entries stay easy to tell apart.

How the RIS to BibTeX conversion works

Open the .ris file in a text editor and copy one or more records, each ending with its ER tag.
Paste them into the converter. CiteTools reads the tags and picks the entry type from the TY line.
Copy the BibTeX entries into your .bib file.

Sample BibTeX entry

Every entry starts with its type and a citation key, followed by one field per line. Authors are joined with the word and, page ranges use a double hyphen, and capital letters that must survive a bibliography style are wrapped in braces. In LaTeX, cite the entry with \cite and its key.

@article{Harris2020Array,
	author = {Harris, Charles R. and Millman, K. Jarrod},
	journal = {Nature},
	doi = {10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2},
	year = {2020},
	pages = {357--362},
	title = {Array programming with {NumPy}},
	volume = {585},
}

Frequently asked questions

Which RIS types become which BibTeX entries?

JOUR becomes @article, BOOK becomes @book, CHAP becomes @inbook, CONF and CPAPER become @inproceedings, and RPRT becomes @techreport. Other types, theses included, come out as @misc, so change the entry type by hand where your bibliography style needs @phdthesis.

Can I convert a whole EndNote or Zotero library?

Paste up to 100 records at a time, separated by blank lines. One record can hold up to 1,500 characters, so delete the abstract lines (AB or N2) from a database export first. For a larger library, export it in batches or use the BibTeX export built into your reference manager.

Are the records I paste stored?

The records are sent to the CiteTools server for conversion and are not saved to an account. A result may stay in an in-memory cache for up to one hour.