Paste your BibTeX or RIS reference block and instantly check for missing required fields, unknown entry types, duplicate keys, and common formatting issues. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
BibTeX (.bib) and RIS (.ris) are the two most common machine-readable reference formats used by reference managers such as Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, and JabRef. BibTeX was created for LaTeX and is the standard in computer science, physics, and mathematics. RIS is more widely used by commercial reference managers and is the export format of most journal databases.
Each BibTeX entry type has required fields that must be present for the reference to compile correctly. @article requires: author, title, journal, year. @book requires: author (or editor), title, publisher, year. @inproceedings requires: author, title, booktitle, year. Missing required fields cause silent failures in LaTeX — the reference compiles but may appear incorrectly formatted or incomplete in the bibliography.
Duplicate citation keys cause the second entry to be silently ignored. Special characters in author names or titles must be escaped: ä → {"a}, ö → {"o}, é → {'e}. Author names must be in "Surname, Forename" format or "Forename Surname" — mixing formats within a file causes inconsistent output. Year must be a four-digit number in curly braces: year = {2023}.