BibTeX Converter
FileFlip converts BibTeX files into 61 other formats entirely inside your browser, using Pandoc, MuPDF and ImageMagick compiled to WebAssembly. The BibTeX file is never uploaded to a server: it is read off your disk, converted on your own machine, and saved back by the browser. There is no file-size limit and no account to create.
How do I convert a BibTeX file?#
- Drop your BibTeX file onto the converter at the top of this page, or click it to pick one from your computer.
- Choose the format you want out of it. FileFlip downloads the engine that conversion needs, once, and your browser caches it.
- Conversion starts the moment you pick the format, and the result is yours to download. The work happens in this tab, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is queued.
Is it safe to convert BibTeX files online?#
Yes, because nothing is uploaded. FileFlip converts BibTeX files inside the browser tab you already have open, using WebAssembly builds of the same engines a desktop converter would install. Your file is read from your own disk into the page's memory, and no request carrying it is ever made.
You do not have to take that on trust. Open your browser's network panel, run a conversion, and you will see the engine come down and your file go nowhere. There is no upload, no server-side copy, no retention window, and no account tied to what you converted.
How FileFlip works lists every engine, its version and its download size, and shows how to check for yourself that nothing leaves your machine.
What happens to a BibTeX file#
FileFlip converts BibTeX into 61 formats with Pandoc, MuPDF and ImageMagick, all of it inside the browser tab. Each conversion below names the engine it uses, what it downloads, and exactly what that conversion keeps or drops.
| Category | Documents |
|---|---|
| File extension | .bib |
| FileFlip support | Read and written |
| Conversions available | 61 |
| Engines | Pandoc, MuPDF and ImageMagick |
| Downloaded to your browser | 65.8 MB on the first conversion, then cached |
What is a BibTeX file?#
A BIB file is a BibTeX bibliography database, plain text listing typed reference entries such as @article and @book that the bibtex program formats into a document's citations and reference list.
Keep a bibliography as BibTeX when it's cited from a LaTeX document, since bibtex and biblatex read the format natively.
Convert BibTeX to RIS when moving citations into a reference manager or database that doesn't read BibTeX directly.
The BibTeX file format reference covers the specification, the programs that open one, and what each conversion keeps or drops.
BibTeX questions people ask#
What program opens a .bib file?
A .bib file is plain text, so it opens in any editor, but reference managers like JabRef, Zotero and Mendeley open it as a structured bibliography with fields for author, title and year rather than raw text.
What's the difference between BibTeX and RIS?
BibTeX is the citation format LaTeX documents cite against, with entries typed as @article or @book. RIS is a tagged format built for reference manager interoperability rather than any one typesetting system. Most reference managers convert between the two on import and export.
Can I edit a .bib file in a plain text editor?
Yes. A BibTeX file is human-readable text, and each entry's fields, author, title, year, journal, are plain key-value pairs, so editing one directly is common and doesn't require special software.
What's the difference between BibTeX and BibLaTeX?
BibTeX is the original 1985 citation processor and its .bib file format. BibLaTeX is a newer LaTeX package that reads the same .bib files but does the citation formatting inside LaTeX itself, usually paired with the biber backend instead of bibtex, which handles Unicode and more fields correctly.