DOI to BibTeX Converter
Convert a DOI or citation to BibTeX in one click: paste a DOI or doi.org link and get a clean BibTeX entry from Crossref/DataCite for LaTeX, Overleaf, Zotero and Mendeley.
In short
Any DOI can be turned into BibTeX by requesting https://doi.org/<DOI> with the header Accept: application/x-bibtex; Crossref or DataCite returns the publisher's metadata as an @article or @book entry, which then only needs a readable citation key.
Who this is for: Students and researchers building a .bib file for LaTeX, Overleaf or a thesis from paper DOIs.
How the DOI is turned into BibTeX
Every DOI resolves through doi.org, which supports content negotiation: ask for the DOI with an Accept: application/x-bibtex header and the registration agency (Crossref for most journals, DataCite for datasets and preprints) returns the record as BibTeX straight from the publisher's metadata. That is what this page does — no scraping, no third-party database.
The raw record is then tidied: one field per line, and (optionally) the citation key is rewritten as lastname + year + first long word of the title, e.g. smith2019learning, so it is readable in your \cite{} commands and consistent across a whole .bib file.
To use it in Overleaf, paste the entry into your references.bib, then \cite{smith2019learning} in the text and compile with BibTeX or Biber.
See also: Compress PDF to an Exact KB Size.
Assumptions
- Fetches https://doi.org/<DOI> with Accept: application/x-bibtex, falling back to the Crossref transform API.
- Tidy key = first author's surname + year + first word of 4+ letters in the title, lower-case ASCII.
- The APA line is fetched separately for single DOIs only.
Worked example
Input 10.1038/nature12373 → the tool fetches the Crossref record and returns an @article{…} entry with title, authors, journal, volume, pages, year, DOI and URL, keyed as <firstauthor>2013<word>. Paste several DOIs, one per line, to build a whole bibliography in one go.
Frequently asked questions
The tool says 'Not found' for a valid DOI — why?
Either the DOI is not registered with Crossref or DataCite (some Chinese and Korean agencies do not serve BibTeX), it was registered very recently, or the publisher's metadata is incomplete. Try again later or take the details from the article page.
Are the page numbers and author names always correct?
They are whatever the publisher deposited. Most are good; some deposit only the first page or use all-capitals names. Check the entry once before your final submission.
Can I convert an ISBN or arXiv ID?
Not here — this tool is DOI-only. Most arXiv papers now have a DOI of the form 10.48550/arXiv.XXXX, which works.
Does this work offline?
No, the record is fetched live from doi.org. Nothing else needs a network connection.
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