Free online BIB to ENW converter

EndNote uses ENW files for importing references in its tagged-text format, so a BibTeX bibliography may need conversion before it can be opened or shared with EndNote users. The conversion is also useful when a reference manager accepts ENW but not the original BIB file.

What the BIB format is

A BIB file is usually a plain-text BibTeX database containing entries such as books, journal articles, conference papers, and web sources. Each entry has a type, citation key, and fields such as author, title, year, journal, volume, pages, and doi.

LaTeX and BibTeX workflows create BIB files, and they are commonly edited with JabRef, BibDesk, TeXstudio, or a plain-text editor. You also encounter them when exporting citations from academic databases, repositories, and reference managers for use with LaTeX.

What the ENW format is

ENW is EndNote's tagged-text interchange format. It stores one reference per record using percent-prefixed tags, including %0 for reference type, %A for author, %T for title, %D for year, %J for journal, %V for volume, %N for issue, %P for pages, and %R for DOI.

EndNote can import ENW files directly through its reference-import workflow. ENW is useful when a recipient needs a small, readable file that can be opened by EndNote without exchanging the complete database.

How to convert BIB to ENW

Using EndNote desktop

1. Open EndNote and choose File → Import → File.
2. Select the .bib file.
3. Set Import Option to BibTeX. If that option is unavailable, install or select EndNote's BibTeX import filter.
4. Choose the character encoding used by the BIB file, normally UTF-8, then import the records.
5. Check several imported references for authors, title, journal, year, pages, DOI, and special characters.
6. Choose File → Export, select the required reference library or group, set the output style to EndNote Export, and save the result with the .enw extension.

Using 101convert.com

You can convert the file for free on 101convert.com without installing software: upload the BIB file, select ENW as the output format, start the conversion, and download the resulting file. Avoid uploading unpublished research metadata or other sensitive bibliographic data to any online service.

Quality and compatibility

BibTeX and ENW use different field models, so conversion can be lossy. Citation keys, BibTeX-specific fields, custom fields, LaTeX commands, and nested braces may not have direct ENW equivalents. A BibTeX name such as von Last, First should be checked after conversion because author-name parsing differs between programs.

Review accented characters, corporate authors, editors, publication types, page ranges, URLs, DOIs, and dates in EndNote before distributing the ENW file. Keep the original BIB file as the authoritative copy, and use UTF-8 when the source contains non-ASCII characters.