Reference format for LaTeX
BibTeX Generator
Turn a DOI, ISBN, PubMed ID or title into a clean .bib entry, with the right entry type and the fields your style file needs. Paste a source to get started.
Based on the BibTeX format and the biblatex manual
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BibTeX is a format, not a style
The .bib file holds the data and your .bst or biblatex style decides how it prints. The same entry can come out as IEEE, APA or ACS without being retyped.
- In the document
- \cite{jinek2012programmable}
- With a page
- \cite[42]{jinek2012programmable}
BibTeX citation examples by source type
For anything published in a journal. Required: author, title, journal, year. Strongly recommended: volume, number, pages, doi.
@article{jinek2012programmable, author = {Jinek, Martin and Chylinski, Krzysztof and Fonfara, Ines and Hauer, Michael and Doudna, Jennifer A. and Charpentier, Emmanuelle}, title = {{A programmable dual-RNA-guided DNA endonuclease in adaptive bacterial immunity}}, journal = {Science}, year = {2012}, volume = {337}, number = {6096}, pages = {816--821}, doi = {10.1126/science.1225829} }
The double braces around the title stop BibTeX lowercasing DNA, RNA and proper nouns.
@article{key2026, author = {Last, First}, title = {{Title of Article}}, journal = {Journal Name}, year = {2026}, volume = {12}, number = {3}, pages = {e0123456}, doi = {10.xxxx/xxxxx} }
@misc{key2026, author = {Last, First}, title = {{Title of Preprint}}, year = {2026}, eprint = {2601.01234}, archivePrefix = {arXiv}, primaryClass = {cs.LG} }
For a whole book. Required: author or editor, title, publisher, year. Use edition, address and isbn where they apply.
@book{russell2020artificial, author = {Russell, Stuart and Norvig, Peter}, title = {{Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach}}, year = {2020}, publisher = {Pearson}, address = {Hoboken, NJ, USA}, edition = {4}, isbn = {9780134610993} }
@book{kandel2021principles, author = {Kandel, Eric R. and Koester, John D. and Mack, Sarah H. and Siegelbaum, Steven A.}, title = {{Principles of Neural Science}}, year = {2021}, publisher = {McGraw Hill}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, edition = {6} }
@book{key2026, editor = {Last, First and Last, Second}, title = {{Title of Book}}, publisher = {Publisher}, year = {2026}, address = {City} }
For a paper in conference proceedings. Required: author, title, booktitle, year. This is the entry type computer science uses most.
@inproceedings{he2016deep, author = {He, Kaiming and Zhang, Xiangyu and Ren, Shaoqing and Sun, Jian}, title = {{Deep residual learning for image recognition}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition}, year = {2016}, pages = {770--778}, address = {Las Vegas, NV, USA}, doi = {10.1109/CVPR.2016.90} }
@inproceedings{key2026, author = {Last, First}, title = {{Title of Paper}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Conference Name}, year = {2026}, pages = {100--125}, address = {City, Country}, organization = {Name of Society} }
@conference{key2026, ...same fields as @inproceedings... }
An alias for @inproceedings, kept for compatibility. Prefer @inproceedings in new files.
For a chapter with its own author inside an edited book. Required: author, title, booktitle, publisher, year.
@incollection{key2026, author = {Last, First}, title = {{Title of Chapter}}, booktitle = {{Title of Book}}, editor = {Last, Second}, publisher = {Publisher}, year = {2026}, pages = {100--125} }
@inbook{key2026, author = {Last, First}, title = {{Title of Book}}, chapter = {4}, publisher = {Publisher}, year = {2026}, pages = {100--125} }
Use @inbook for a numbered part of a book by the same author, @incollection when the chapter has its own author.
For web pages, software and anything without a print home. @online is available in biblatex; classic BibTeX styles use @misc with a howpublished field.
@online{key2026, author = {Name of Organisation}, title = {{Title of Page}}, year = {2026}, url = {https://example.com/page}, urldate = {2026-08-15} }
@misc{key2026, author = {Name of Organisation}, title = {{Title of Page}}, year = {2026}, howpublished = {\url{https://example.com/page}}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-15} }
@software{key2026, author = {Last, First}, title = {{Name of Software}}, version = {2.1}, year = {2026}, url = {https://example.com/software} }
Required: author, title, school, year. Use @mastersthesis for a master’s degree; the fields are identical.
@phdthesis{key2026, author = {Last, First}, title = {{Title of Dissertation}}, school = {University Name}, year = {2026}, address = {City, Country} }
@mastersthesis{key2026, author = {Last, First}, title = {{Title of Thesis}}, school = {University Name}, year = {2026} }
@techreport{key2026, author = {Last, First}, title = {{Title of Report}}, institution = {Name of Institution}, year = {2026}, number = {TR-1234} }
Build your BibTeX bibliography
- @inproceedings{vaswani2017attention, author = {Vaswani, Ashish and Shazeer, Noam and Parmar, Niki and Uszkoreit, Jakob and Jones, Llion and Gomez, Aidan N. and Kaiser, Lukasz and Polosukhin, Illia}, title = {{Attention is all you need}}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, year = {2017}, volume = {30}, pages = {5998--6008} }
- @inproceedings{he2016deep, author = {He, Kaiming and Zhang, Xiangyu and Ren, Shaoqing and Sun, Jian}, title = {{Deep residual learning for image recognition}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition}, year = {2016}, pages = {770--778}, address = {Las Vegas, NV, USA}, doi = {10.1109/CVPR.2016.90} }
- @article{jinek2012programmable, author = {Jinek, Martin and Chylinski, Krzysztof and Fonfara, Ines and Hauer, Michael and Doudna, Jennifer A. and Charpentier, Emmanuelle}, title = {{A programmable dual-RNA-guided DNA endonuclease in adaptive bacterial immunity}}, journal = {Science}, year = {2012}, volume = {337}, number = {6096}, pages = {816--821}, doi = {10.1126/science.1225829} }
- @inproceedings{brown2020language, author = {Brown, Tom B. and Mann, Benjamin and Ryder, Nick and Subbiah, Melanie and Kaplan, Jared and Dhariwal, Prafulla and Neelakantan, Arvind}, title = {{Language models are few-shot learners}}, booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems}, year = {2020}, volume = {33}, pages = {1877--1901} }
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- Style-aware sorting Ordered and numbered for your style.
BibTeX citation rules at a glance
- Entry type matters A conference paper filed as @article prints wrongly whatever style you choose.
- Brace your capitals Most styles lowercase titles. Double braces keep DNA, RNA and proper nouns intact.
- Author names Write Last, First and separate authors with the word "and", never a comma.
- Page ranges use two hyphens pages = {100--125}. A single hyphen prints as a hyphen, not an en dash.
- Cite keys are yours Anything unique works. authorYearWord is readable and survives a growing library.
- Escape the specials An unescaped & or % breaks the build. Write \& and \%.
Checked against the BibTeX format and the biblatex manual · Last reviewed August 2026
Read our methodologyCommon BibTeX citation mistakes
- Filing a conference paper as @article Use @inproceedings. The entry type, not the style file, decides whether the proceedings name is printed.
- Leaving the title unbraced Without braces, most styles lowercase everything after the first word, and CRISPR becomes crispr.
- Separating authors with commas BibTeX splits names on the word "and". A comma inside a name means "surname, given name".
- Unescaped ampersands A bare & is a LaTeX alignment character and will stop the build with an unhelpful error.
- Duplicate cite keys Two entries with the same key silently drop one of them. Watch for it after merging libraries.
- Copying a DOI as a URL field Use doi = {10.xxxx/xxxxx}. Style files build the link themselves and format it correctly.
BibTeX quick reference (one page, PDF)
Every entry type with its required and optional fields, the escaping rules, and the differences between BibTeX and biblatex. Print it, or pin it next to your editor.
- All common entry types with required and optional fields
- Brace and escaping rules, with the errors they prevent
- What biblatex adds: @online, @software, urldate, date
- A cite-key convention that scales past a hundred entries
BibTeX citation generator FAQ
Is this BibTeX generator free?
Yes. Generate, copy, save, and export .bib entries without signing up. There is no paid tier and no export limit.
What is the difference between BibTeX and biblatex?
BibTeX is the original program and format. Biblatex is a modern replacement that reads the same files, adds entry types such as @online and @software, and handles dates and URLs properly. If you are starting a new document, use biblatex with biber.
Why did my title lose its capital letters?
Most style files lowercase titles beyond the first word. Wrap the title in a second pair of braces to keep the capitalisation: title = {{Deep Learning with CRISPR}}.
How should I name my cite keys?
Anything unique works. A readable convention such as surnameYearKeyword stays legible once your library has hundreds of entries, and our generator produces keys in that shape.
Can I export my whole bibliography as BibTeX?
Yes. Add sources to the bibliography builder and export the entire list as a .bib file.
Where does the citation metadata come from?
Crossref for DOIs, Open Library for ISBNs, and PubMed for biomedical articles. Nothing is written by a language model, so a volume or page range is either verified or left blank for you to fill in. See our methodology.
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