DOI to BibTeX Converter

How it works

The converter generates a BibTeX entry from a DOI without you typing any of it. Every DOI is registered with an agency such as Crossref or DataCite, which stores the publication's metadata. When your browser asks doi.org for a DOI with the application/x-bibtex content type, the agency answers with a BibTeX entry. This page then tidies it up: fields are put in a sensible order and aligned, page ranges get a proper --, links use https://doi.org/, and each entry gets a readable citation key. The abstract, keywords and copyright fields are dropped unless you tick the option to keep them.

What you can paste

• Bare DOIs: 10.1038/nature14539
• DOI links or prefixes: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539, doi:10.1038/nature14539
• arXiv IDs and links: 2303.08774, arXiv:1706.03762v5, https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9711200

Put several on separate lines to build a whole .bib file at once.

Which sources are covered

The converter works for every DOI whose registration agency answers with BibTeX. That includes Crossref, which registers most journal articles, conference papers, books and book chapters, and DataCite, which registers datasets, software, theses and preprints, among them everything on Zenodo and arXiv. An arXiv ID is looked up through the DOI that arXiv assigns to each paper, 10.48550/arXiv.2303.08774 for example, so preprints without a journal DOI work too.

Citation keys

The default key style follows Google Scholar: first author's last name, year and the first significant word of the title, all lower case, as in einstein1935can. If a key occurs more than once, the later entries get a letter appended (b, c, …). You can also choose Einstein1935 or keep the key the registration agency sent. A key that contains a slash or colon, such as the DOI-based keys from DataCite, is replaced by the default style.

What it does not do

This is a lookup by identifier, not a file converter. It does not turn RIS, EndNote or other reference files into BibTeX, and it does not search by title, author or ISBN. For moving a whole library between formats, see working with .bib files.

Check before you cite

Registry metadata is only as good as what the publisher deposited. Titles sometimes lose capitalisation when your style lower-cases them, so protect proper nouns with braces, e.g. {Bayesian}. See special symbols and the FAQ.

Questions

Is the BibTeX converter free?

Yes. It is free and needs no account. It runs entirely in your browser: the lookups go directly to doi.org, not through bibtex.org.

Can I convert several DOIs at once?

Yes. Paste one DOI or arXiv ID per line and you get one BibTeX entry for each, in the same order. Download .bib saves them all as references.bib.

Can it generate BibTeX from a title, an ISBN or a web page?

No. It needs a DOI or an arXiv ID, because those identify a publication unambiguously. For a title, use the “Cite” link in Google Scholar; for books and web pages, a reference manager such as Zotero creates the entry for you.

Why is no entry found for my DOI?

Check for a missing or extra character first; a DOI always starts with 10. and contains a slash. Very new DOIs can take a few days to become available, and a few smaller registration agencies do not return BibTeX at all.