Free online RIS to CSV converter

Reference managers and citation databases often export records as RIS, while spreadsheets, databases, and analysis tools commonly accept CSV. Converting the file lets each citation become a spreadsheet row for editing, import, or archival.

What the RIS format is

RIS is a plain-text exchange format for bibliographic references, named after Research Information Systems. Reference managers, scholarly databases, library catalogs, and services such as Zotero, EndNote, RefWorks, Mendeley, ProQuest, EBSCOhost, and Web of Science use it to exchange citations.

Each RIS field starts with a two-character tag, normally followed by two spaces, a hyphen, a space, and the value. For example, TY - JOUR identifies the reference type, AU - stores an author, TI - stores a title, JO - or J2 - can store a journal title, and ER - ends a record. One file can contain multiple records, repeated authors or keywords, continuation lines, and exporter-specific tags.

What the CSV format is

CSV is a plain-text table format in which rows represent records and columns represent fields. A header row might contain Type, Title, Authors, Year, DOI, Abstract, and URL. Fields containing commas, quotation marks, or line breaks must be quoted according to CSV rules.

CSV opens in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, Google Sheets, database systems, statistical applications, and programming languages. It is easier to inspect and edit than RIS, but it has no universal scheme for repeated authors, keywords, multiline abstracts, citation styles, or relationships between records.

How to convert an RIS file to CSV

For a single file, use the RIS-to-CSV converter on 101convert.com without installing software:

1. Open the RIS-to-CSV converter on 101convert.com.
2. Select the .ris file from your device.
3. Start the conversion and wait for the .csv file to be generated.
4. Download the result and open it in Excel, LibreOffice Calc, or another CSV-compatible application.

Check the generated column names and field mapping before importing the file elsewhere. If the destination requires particular columns, rename or remove columns after confirming that the required RIS data was preserved.

For repeatable local conversion, use a RIS-aware parser rather than splitting the source at commas or hyphens. For example, the Python rispy package can parse records before the standard-library csv module writes selected fields:

pip install rispy

import csv
import rispy

with open('references.ris', encoding='utf-8') as source:
    records = rispy.load(source)

fields = ['type_of_reference', 'title', 'authors', 'year',
          'secondary_title', 'doi', 'abstract']

with open('references.csv', 'w', newline='', encoding='utf-8-sig') as target:
    writer = csv.DictWriter(target, fieldnames=fields, extrasaction='ignore')
    writer.writeheader()
    for record in records:
        row = {field: record.get(field, '') for field in fields}
        if isinstance(row['authors'], list):
            row['authors'] = '; '.join(row['authors'])
        writer.writerow(row)

Parser key names vary, so inspect a parsed record before choosing the fields list. Add keys such as isbn, url, keywords, or notes when they exist in the source and are supported by the parser.

Quality and compatibility limits

RIS permits repeated fields, especially authors and keywords, while a CSV conversion normally assigns one cell to each column. A converter may join repeated values with semicolons, create separate columns, serialize a list, or retain only the first value. Confirm this behavior before loading the CSV into a database or bibliography system.

RIS exporters do not use every tag consistently. Journal titles may appear under JO, J2, or a provider-specific field; dates may contain only a year or a complete date; and abstracts, URLs, identifiers, and notes may be absent. Compare titles, authors, dates, DOI values, abstracts, and URLs with the original RIS file.

Use UTF-8 when references contain accented characters, non-Latin scripts, or symbols. The utf-8-sig setting can help older Windows spreadsheet software recognize UTF-8. If Excel places the entire record in one column, import it through Data → From Text/CSV, select comma as the delimiter, and verify that quoted fields remain intact.