RIS to BMP2 Converter
FileFlip converts RIS to BMP2 entirely inside your browser, using Pandoc, MuPDF and ImageMagick compiled to WebAssembly. The file is never uploaded to a server: it is read off your disk, converted on your own machine, and saved back by the browser. That means no file-size limit, no queue and no account.
How do I convert a RIS file to BMP2?#
- Drop your RIS file onto the converter at the top of this page, or click it to pick one from your computer. You can add as many as you like.
- Leave the target set to BMP2 and the conversion starts on its own. FileFlip downloads 79.9 MB of WebAssembly the first time and nothing after that, then runs Pandoc, MuPDF and ImageMagick on your own machine.
- Save the BMP2 file. Your browser writes it straight to your downloads folder, because there was never a server holding it.
Does converting RIS to BMP2 lose quality?#
Yes, in the sense that text stops being text. Each RIS page is rendered to pixels and handed to BMP2, so the result looks right and can no longer be selected, searched, or reflowed.
Is it safe to convert RIS files online?#
Yes, because nothing is uploaded. FileFlip converts RIS 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 RIS to BMP2 actually does to the file#
Converting RIS to BMP2 runs on Pandoc, MuPDF and ImageMagick, downloads 79.9 MB of WebAssembly the first time and nothing after that, renders each page to pixels, keeps page layout, and drops selectable text and transparency.
| Engine | Pandoc, MuPDF and ImageMagick |
|---|---|
| Conversion path | 3 steps: RIS → HTML → PNG → BMP2 |
| Downloaded to your browser | 79.9 MB, once, then cached by your browser |
| Quality | Text becomes pixels |
| You get back | One image per page, zipped when the source has several |
| Where it runs | In a background worker, so the page stays responsive |
What survives the conversion
| What is in the file | This conversion | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Selectable text | Dropped | The target format has nowhere to put it. |
| Page layout | Kept | Carried through into the converted file. |
| Transparency | Dropped | The target format has nowhere to put it. |
Worth knowing before you start:
- pages render at twice their point size in opaque RGB, roughly 144 DPI, with no transparency
- reflowable input is laid out on a fixed 595x842pt page at 11pt before anything else happens
- the file passes through HTML on the way, so anything HTML cannot express does not survive
What is a RIS file?#
A RIS file is a plain-text citation record in the tagged format Research Information Systems designed for its Reference Manager software, using two-letter codes such as AU and TI to mark author, title and other bibliographic fields.
Use RIS when moving a citation list between two different reference managers, since it's the format nearly all of them agree on.
Convert RIS to BibTeX when the citations need to be cited from a LaTeX document instead of a reference manager.
What is a BMP2 file?#
BMP2 is ImageMagick's name for a Windows bitmap saved with the original 12-byte BITMAPCOREHEADER from 1987's OS/2 1.x, an encoding choice rather than a different file format, so the result is an ordinary uncompressed .bmp using the oldest and most limited header structure.
Choose BMP2 only when a specific legacy OS/2 or early-1990s Windows program requires the old-style bitmap header.
Save as standard BMP or BMP3 for anything opened on a modern system, since BMP2's extra compatibility buys nothing there.
RIS to BMP2 questions people ask#
What is a RIS file used for?
A RIS file carries a citation or a list of citations between reference managers and academic databases, with two-letter tags marking each bibliographic field. It's the export format library catalogues and databases like PubMed reach for when a user wants to save a reference into their own citation library.
Does Zotero support RIS files?
Yes, Zotero both imports and exports RIS files, and it's one of the two or three formats Zotero recommends for moving a library into or out of a different reference manager.
What's the difference between RIS and BibTeX?
RIS is a general tagged format built for reference manager interoperability, while BibTeX is the citation format LaTeX documents cite against directly. A citation library usually passes through RIS when moving between reference managers and through BibTeX when it needs to reach a LaTeX document.
Why did my RIS import lose some fields?
RIS has no single current maintaining body, so different tools export slightly different tag conventions for the same field, and a reference manager importing a RIS file written by another tool can misread or drop a field it doesn't recognize.