Free online XLS to BIB converter

Reference lists kept in Excel often need to move into BibTeX for use with LaTeX or a citation manager. Converting the spreadsheet requires mapping its columns—such as author, title, and year—to bibliography fields; a spreadsheet is not automatically a bibliography.

What XLS is

.xls is the legacy binary workbook format used by Microsoft Excel before the newer .xlsx format. Excel and spreadsheet programs such as LibreOffice Calc can create or open XLS files, which may contain multiple sheets, formulas, and formatted cells.

What BIB is

.bib is a plain-text BibTeX bibliography file used by LaTeX and reference-management software. It stores records such as articles and books as typed entries with named fields, for example @article with author, title, and year. Its text format is portable and can be edited directly, but spreadsheet columns must be assigned to suitable bibliography fields.

How to convert XLS to BIB

Online on 101convert.com

1. Open the XLS-to-BIB converter page on 101convert.com and add the workbook.
2. Start the conversion and wait for it to finish.
3. Download the BIB file and check that its entries and fields match the source spreadsheet.

The page supports batch conversion. It displays a per-file size limit.

Offline with desktop software

Use LibreOffice Calc to make a CSV copy of the data, then import that copy into the free, open-source reference manager JabRef and export it as BibTeX.

1. In Calc, keep the bibliography data on one sheet and use a separate column for each field. Use recognizable headers such as author, title, year, and journal. Save that sheet as CSV through File → Save As.
2. In JabRef, import the CSV through File → Import into current library. Check the imported fields and set the appropriate entry type for each record, such as article or book.
3. Export the library through File → Export and choose BibTeX as the format.

LibreOffice runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux; JabRef runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Excel can also save an XLS sheet as CSV, but it does not natively export BibTeX; the import and BibTeX export steps still require a bibliography program.

Quality and compatibility

Check that each row represents one reference and that authors, titles, dates, and publication details land in the intended fields. Rows with missing data, merged cells, formulas, or several authors in one cell may need cleanup. BibTeX requires special characters in field values to be escaped or protected, so inspect names and titles containing characters such as &, %, or braces before using the output.