Free online XLSX to RIS converter

Reference managers such as Zotero and EndNote can import bibliographic records in RIS, while source metadata is often stored in Excel workbooks. Converting the spreadsheet lets you move those records into a reference manager, provided its columns contain bibliographic information that can be mapped to RIS fields.

What XLSX contains

XLSX is the spreadsheet format used by Microsoft Excel and supported by programs such as LibreOffice Calc. It stores worksheets of rows, columns, values, formulas, and formatting; researchers commonly use it to organize citations or export records from databases.

What RIS contains

RIS is a plain-text interchange format for bibliographic records. Reference managers and research databases use it to exchange citation details; each record has tagged fields such as title, author, year, and DOI, and is bounded by TY and ER tags. RIS is useful for importing records between compatible programs, but it does not preserve spreadsheet formulas, layout, or general-purpose cell data.

How to convert XLSX to RIS

Online on 101convert.com

1. Open the XLSX-to-RIS converter on 101convert.com and upload the workbook. Several files can be converted as a batch; the page shows the per-file size limit.
2. Start the conversion.
3. Download the converted RIS file or files.

Offline with desktop software

For a local conversion, Python and the open-source openpyxl library can read a workbook and write RIS records. Install the library with python -m pip install openpyxl (use python3 instead of python on some macOS and Linux systems). Save the following as xlsx_to_ris.py. It reads the active worksheet and expects the header names shown in the code; each row becomes a journal-article record.

from openpyxl import load_workbook
import sys

source, destination = sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2]
workbook = load_workbook(source, read_only=True, data_only=True)
sheet = workbook.active
headers = {
    str(cell.value).strip().lower(): index
    for index, cell in enumerate(next(sheet.iter_rows()))
    if cell.value is not None
}

def value(row, name):
    index = headers.get(name)
    if index is None or row[index] is None:
        return ""
    return str(row[index]).replace("\\r", " ").replace("\\n", " ").strip()

records = []
for row in sheet.iter_rows(min_row=2, values_only=True):
    title = value(row, "title")
    if not title:
        continue
    lines = ["TY  - JOUR", f"TI  - {title}"]
    for author in value(row, "authors").split(";"):
        if author.strip():
            lines.append(f"AU  - {author.strip()}")
    for tag, column in [("PY", "year"), ("JO", "journal"),
                        ("DO", "doi"), ("UR", "url"),
                        ("AB", "abstract")]:
        field = value(row, column)
        if field:
            lines.append(f"{tag}  - {field}")
    lines.append("ER  -")
    records.append("\\n".join(lines))

with open(destination, "w", encoding="utf-8", newline="\\n") as output:
    output.write("\\n\\n".join(records))
    if records:
        output.write("\\n")
workbook.close()

Run it with python xlsx_to_ris.py references.xlsx references.ris. Change the column names in the script if your headers differ. It labels every record as JOUR; change that type for books or other material, and adjust the field mapping to match your data.

Quality and compatibility

A spreadsheet is not automatically a bibliography: rows without titles are skipped by the script, and fields not mapped in the script are omitted. Check the resulting RIS file in the destination reference manager, especially author names, publication types, and records with multiple authors. RIS stores citation fields rather than the workbook’s formulas, formatting, or sheet structure.