Bibliography & Citation Generator

The Bibliography & Citation Generator is a free online tool that generate citations in apa, mla, chicago, harvard, ieee, and vancouver styles for books, journals, websites, and conference papers. bibtex export.. It runs entirely in your browser with no installation or sign-up needed.

APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago 17th, Harvard, IEEE, and Vancouver — all six generated at once for easy comparison.

Yes. Add multiple sources (books, journals, websites, conferences) and download the complete bibliography as a BibTeX .bib file.

Yes — completely free, client-side, no registration.

Absolutely. The Bibliography & Citation Generator processes everything client-side in your browser. No data is uploaded to or stored on any server. Your content remains private on your device at all times.

Yes, the Bibliography & Citation Generator is fully responsive and works on smartphones and tablets. You can use it on any device with a modern web browser -- no app download required.

No account or registration is needed. Simply open the Bibliography & Citation Generator in your browser and start using it immediately. There are no sign-up walls or usage restrictions.

Simply enter your input in the provided field, adjust any settings to your preference, and the tool will process it instantly. You can then copy the result to your clipboard or download it.

The Bibliography & Citation Generator works in all modern browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Opera. For the best experience, use the latest version of your preferred browser.

An in-text citation is the short pointer you place inside a sentence to credit a source as you use it, while the reference list entry is the full description of that source at the end of your paper. The two work as a pair: the in-text marker tells readers where an idea came from, and the matching reference list entry lets them find the original. The format of the pointer depends on the style — APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard use an author-date or author-page parenthetical like (Smith, 2023), whereas IEEE and Vancouver use a bracketed number like [1] keyed to a numbered list. For every source you enter, this tool shows both the full reference and its correct in-text citation side by side in all six styles, so you can copy each into the right place.

When a web page lists no author, most styles tell you to begin the entry with the page or article title instead, and in-text you reference a shortened version of that title. When no publication date is given, APA and Harvard use "n.d." (no date) in the year position, and you record the date you accessed the page so readers know which version you saw. That access date matters because online content can change after you cite it. In this tool's website source type, the author field is optional, and there are separate optional fields for the published date and the access date, so you can enter exactly what the page provides and leave the rest blank. The generator then formats the entry correctly for each style without you guessing where the title or access date belongs.

"Et al." is short for the Latin et alia, meaning "and others," and it stands in for additional authors so a citation does not list a long string of names. The rule for when to switch to it depends on the style. APA uses et al. in-text whenever a work has three or more authors, naming only the first. MLA lists a single author normally but uses the first author plus et al. once there are three or more. In numbered styles like Vancouver, the full reference lists up to six authors before truncating the rest with et al. This tool applies each style's author rules automatically as you add or remove authors, inverting names to initials where required and inserting et al. at the correct threshold, so your in-text markers and reference entries stay consistent across all six styles.

BibTeX is a plain-text format that stores each source as a structured record — type, author, title, year, and so on — that reference managers and typesetting tools can read directly. A .bib file is simply a collection of these records. It is the standard way to handle citations in LaTeX, where you cite a source by its key and let the system build and number the bibliography for you. This tool can export your entire source list as a .bib file, which you can import straight into Overleaf, Zotero, or Mendeley, or place beside a LaTeX document so it picks up the references at compile time. That saves you re-typing every source when you move from drafting to a formal manuscript. Build your bibliography here, download the .bib file, and load it into your writing workflow in one step.

Each citation style was created by a different field with its own priorities, so they order and format the same information differently. APA, used in psychology and the social sciences, is author-date and foregrounds the year because recency matters there. MLA, used across the humanities, is author-page and emphasises the specific location of a quotation. IEEE, required in engineering and computer science, uses numbered references in the order they appear, which keeps dense technical writing compact. They also differ in small mechanics — which words are italicised, where the year sits, and whether names are inverted to initials. That is why one source can produce six visibly different entries. This tool generates all of them from a single entry so you can compare the styles directly and copy whichever your assignment or journal requires.