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BibTeX Formatter: Clean, Sort, and Check .bib Files

Paste BibTeX and get clean, consistent entries: lower-case types and field names, a standard field order, aligned equals signs, values in braces or quotes, entries sorted by key or year, and warnings for duplicate keys or DOIs and fields that the entry type requires but lacks.

BibTeX Formatter: Clean, Sort, and Check .bib Files: Each entry is read field by field, including braced, quoted, and bare numeric values, then written back with fields in a fixed order such as author, title, journal, volume, number, pages, year, doi. An article without a journal or year is flagged, as are two entries sharing a citation key, or the same DOI written as https://doi.org/10.1/abc and 10.1/ABC. Runs 100% locally in your browser with zero server file uploads.

Category: Text tools
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Availability: Ready to use

BibTeX formatterLocal processing

Runs entirely in your browser

IndentSort entriesValues in Align equals signs

BibTeX

@Article{lecun2015,
title={Deep learning},author = "LeCun, Yann and Bengio, Yoshua and Hinton, Geoffrey",
journal={Nature},volume=521,number=7553,pages={436--444},year=2015,doi={10.1038/nature14539}}
@book{knuth1968, author={Knuth, Donald E.}, title={The Art of Computer Programming}, year=1968, publisher = {Addison-Wesley}}

Formatted

@article{lecun2015,
  author  = {LeCun, Yann and Bengio, Yoshua and Hinton, Geoffrey},
  title   = {Deep learning},
  journal = {Nature},
  volume  = 521,
  number  = 7553,
  pages   = {436--444},
  year    = 2015,
  doi     = {10.1038/nature14539}
}

@book{knuth1968,
  author    = {Knuth, Donald E.},
  title     = {The Art of Computer Programming},
  publisher = {Addison-Wesley},
  year      = 1968
}

2 entries read.

Field names are lower-cased and put in a standard order, values are tidied onto one line, and numbers for year, volume, and issue are left bare. Braces inside values, such as those around an acronym to keep its capitals, are kept. @comment, @preamble, and @string blocks are left out of the output. Nothing is uploaded.

Field order

author or editor, title, booktitle, journal, series, edition, volume, number, pages, chapter, publisher or institution, address, month, year, ISBN or ISSN, doi, url, note, then anything else.

Citations

To make a reference in APA, MLA, or Chicago style, use the citation generator.

How to use it

Paste the entries from your .bib file.
Choose indentation, sorting, and braces or quotes.
Copy the result or download a .bib file, and fix any warnings.

Privacy & limitations

Everything stays in your browser.

Related tools

Frequently asked questions

Will it change my citation keys?

No: keys are kept exactly, so \cite commands in your document still work; only spacing, case of field names, and order change.

Why are some values in double braces?

Braces inside a value, such as {GPU} or {DNA}, tell BibTeX to keep the capitals; the formatter keeps them.

Which fields are required?

It follows the standard BibTeX styles: for example, an article needs author, title, journal, and year, and a book needs title, publisher, and year, with an author or editor.

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