About BibTeX
BibTeX has been the standard way to manage references in LaTeX for four decades.
A short history
BibTeX was created by Oren Patashnik and Leslie Lamport in 1985 as the bibliography companion to LaTeX. The idea was simple and durable: keep references in a plain-text database, cite them by key, and let a separate style file decide how the bibliography looks. Change the style, and every reference is reformatted consistently.
The program’s current version, 0.99d, still does exactly that and ships with every TeX distribution. The .bib file format has outlived many of the tools around it. Today it’s the common exchange format for reference managers, preprint servers, publishers and search engines. Newer systems like biblatex and biber reimplement the processing but read the same files.
The original documentation is still worth reading: BibTeXing and Designing BibTeX Styles by Oren Patashnik, both available on CTAN.
About this site
bibtex.org has explained the BibTeX format since 2006. It was started by Alexander Feder and redesigned in 2026, with the original guides revised and expanded and a new DOI to BibTeX lookup.
The site is independent and not affiliated with the authors of BibTeX or any TeX user group. Corrections and suggestions are welcome at webmaster@bibtex.org.