Free online XLSX to BIB converter

Reference lists are often collected in spreadsheets, but LaTeX projects and bibliography managers may require BibTeX database files. Converting the workbook to BIB creates text-based entries that those tools can read.

What XLSX is

XLSX is the Office Open XML spreadsheet format used by Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, and other spreadsheet programs. It stores worksheets with cells, formulas, formatting, and sometimes multiple tabs; reference lists commonly use columns for author, title, year, journal, and DOI.

What BIB is

BIB usually means a BibTeX bibliography file: plain-text records such as @article{key, ...}, used by LaTeX and reference managers including JabRef. Its fields can hold bibliographic data such as author, title, year, and doi; it is not a general-purpose spreadsheet format.

How to convert XLSX to BIB

Online on 101convert.com

1. Open the XLSX-to-BIB converter page on 101convert.com and upload the workbook.
2. Select BIB as the output format and start the conversion.
3. Download the converted file. The page supports batch conversion; its per-file size limit is shown on the page.

Offline with Python

Python and the open-source openpyxl library work on Windows, macOS, and Linux. This method reads the first worksheet, treating its first row as field names; use BibTeX field headers such as author, title, year, and journal. Add optional key and entrytype columns to specify citation keys and entry types.

1. Install the library with python -m pip install openpyxl (on Windows, use py -m pip install openpyxl if needed).
2. Save the following as xlsx_to_bib.py in the workbook's folder:

from openpyxl import load_workbook
import re


def bib_value(value):
    text = str(value).strip()
    if isinstance(value, float) and value.is_integer():
        text = str(int(value))
    for char, replacement in [
        ("\\", r"\textbackslash{}"), ("{", r"\{"), ("}", r"\}"),
        ("&", r"\&"), ("%", r"\%"), ("$", r"\$"),
        ("#", r"\#"), ("_", r"\_"), ("~", r"\textasciitilde{}"),
        ("^", r"\textasciicircum{}")
    ]:
        text = text.replace(char, replacement)
    return text

workbook = load_workbook("references.xlsx", data_only=True, read_only=True)
sheet = workbook.worksheets[0]
headers = [str(cell.value).strip().lower() if cell.value is not None else ""
           for cell in sheet[1]]
lines = []

for number, cells in enumerate(sheet.iter_rows(min_row=2, values_only=True), start=1):
    row = {name: value for name, value in zip(headers, cells) if name and value is not None}
    if not row:
        continue
    entry_type = str(row.get("entrytype", row.get("entry_type", "misc"))).lower()
    if not re.fullmatch(r"[a-z]+", entry_type):
        entry_type = "misc"
    key = row.get("key", row.get("citekey"))
    if key is None:
        source = row.get("author", row.get("title", "ref"))
        key = re.sub(r"[^A-Za-z0-9]+", "", str(source).split(" and ")[0])[:24] or "ref"
        key = f"{key}{number}"
    key = re.sub(r"[^A-Za-z0-9_:-]+", "", str(key)) or f"ref{number}"
    lines.append(f"@{entry_type}{{{key},")
    for field, value in row.items():
        if field in {"key", "citekey", "entrytype", "entry_type"}:
            continue
        if re.fullmatch(r"[a-z][a-z0-9]*", field):
            text = str(int(value)) if isinstance(value, float) and value.is_integer() else str(value).strip()
            lines.append(f"  {field} = {{{bib_value(text)}}},")
    lines.append("}")

with open("references.bib", "w", encoding="utf-8") as output:
    output.write("\n".join(lines) + "\n")

3. Replace references.xlsx with the workbook's filename, then run python xlsx_to_bib.py (or py xlsx_to_bib.py on Windows). The script writes references.bib.

Quality and compatibility

A spreadsheet does not define which columns are bibliographic fields, so check the field headers and resulting entries before importing them. The script uses only the first worksheet; formula cells are read from their saved cached values and may be blank if the workbook has no cached result. It does not preserve spreadsheet layout, formulas, or formatting.