Free online ENW to RIS converter

A reference manager, manuscript system, or library catalog may require RIS when references are available as an EndNote-tagged ENW file. Converting the text preserves bibliographic records in a format that can be imported by many unrelated citation managers.

What the ENW format is

ENW is a plain-text export format used by EndNote and by databases that provide EndNote-tagged downloads. Each record contains field markers such as %0 for reference type, %A for author, %D for year, and %T for title. A blank line commonly separates records.

EndNote creates ENW files through File → Export. The file stores structured citation data, not document layout, full article text, or normally the PDFs attached to an EndNote library.

What the RIS format is

RIS is a plain-text bibliographic interchange format originally associated with Research Information Systems. It uses two-character field tags followed by a value, including TY for reference type, AU for author, TI for title, JO for journal name, DO for DOI, and ER to end a record.

RIS is supported by Zotero, Mendeley, RefWorks, Citavi, library systems, institutional repositories, and many manuscript-submission systems. Its plain-text structure makes it easier to exchange references between different applications than a native reference-manager database, although field support varies.

How to convert ENW to RIS

Using EndNote

1. Open EndNote and choose File → Import → File.
2. Select the .enw file. Set Import Option to EndNote Import if EndNote does not detect the format automatically.
3. Review the imported references and correct authors, dates, reference types, journal names, page ranges, and DOI values where necessary.
4. Select the imported references or their group, then choose File → Export.
5. Choose the RefMan (RIS) Export output style and a text-only output type if requested. Save the file with the .ris extension.
6. Import the resulting file into the destination application and check several records before deleting the original ENW file.

Using Zotero

1. Choose File → Import in Zotero and select the ENW file. If a format filter is requested, choose the EndNote-tagged text option.
2. Inspect the imported collection for incorrect reference types, missing fields, split names, and character encoding problems.
3. Select the required records, use File → Export Items or the item context menu, choose RIS, and save the export as .ris.

For a no-installation conversion, the built-in converter on 101convert.com can convert an ENW file to RIS for free. Open the output as plain text and confirm that each record has a suitable TY - line and ends with ER -.

Quality and compatibility limits

ENW and RIS use different field vocabularies. Standard authors, titles, dates, journals, pages, identifiers, abstracts, and URLs usually transfer, but uncommon EndNote fields may be omitted, combined, or mapped to a generic RIS field. Custom fields, library groups, ratings, formatting, linked files, and PDF attachments are not reliably preserved.

Check author order and corporate-author syntax, editors, publication types, page ranges, Unicode characters, abstracts, URLs, and DOIs after conversion. If accented characters are damaged, repeat the export with UTF-8 when the application offers an encoding choice; older software may produce Windows-1252 or another local encoding. RIS can contain multiple records, but duplicate detection and interpretation of optional fields depend on the importing application.