DOI to Citation Converter
Turn DOIs into finished references in seven styles, BibTeX and RIS.
Try before you buy.
- Free preview: the first words of each formatted reference (at most half of it, up to 100 words in all), with the checks on each entry and where its details came from.
- Locked until you unlock it: download, copy and saving to your device.
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DOIs
One per line, or a whole reference list, an e-mail or a page of links: bare DOIs (10.xxxx/…), doi.org links, publisher article links and arXiv IDs are all found. Up to 25 at a time — each run adds to your list.
Not found
Your references
Style settings
Free preview: each reference shows its first words. With a pass, or after unlocking this list, every reference is shown in full with its in-text citations and Every style, and the list can be copied, downloaded or added to the Bibliography Maker.
References
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About the DOI to Citation Converter
Paste a DOI — or a whole reference list, an e-mail or a page of links — and get each work as a finished reference in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18, Harvard (Cite Them Right), IEEE, Vancouver or AMA 11, with its in-text citations, or as BibTeX and RIS for a reference manager. DOIs are picked out of the text wherever they are: bare, after “doi:”, inside doi.org and publisher links, from nature.com, bioRxiv, medRxiv, eLife and Lancet article links, and as arXiv identifiers.
The details come from the agency that registered each DOI — Crossref for most journals and books, DataCite for data sets and preprints, and mEDRA, KISTI or the EU Publications Office for others — so authors, titles, volumes and pages are as they were registered with the DOI. Check each entry, fix anything with Edit, then, with a pass, copy the list with its italics or download it for Word, LaTeX or EndNote.
How to use it
- Paste DOIs into the box, one per line or mixed into any text, or press Example to try it.
- Press Get citations. Up to 25 DOIs are looked up per press, a few a second; any that cannot be found are listed under Not found with the reason.
- Choose the citation style above the list. Author-date styles sort it by author; IEEE, Vancouver and AMA number it in the order shown, which Order of the list can change.
- Read the notes under each entry: Edit fixes a name, a title’s capitals or a missing detail. With a pass, each entry also shows its in-text citations, and Every style shows it in all seven styles, BibTeX and RIS.
- Without a pass you see a free preview: the first words of each reference. With a pass, or after unlocking this list, press Copy list to paste it into Word or Google Docs with italics, download it as Word, RTF, text, BibTeX or RIS, or press Add all to the Bibliography Maker to keep it in a project you can add to later.
Examples
10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29
APA 7: Ray, O. (2004). How the mind hurts and heals the body. American Psychologist, 59(1), 29–40. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29 MLA 9: Ray, Oakley. “How the Mind Hurts and Heals the Body.” American Psychologist, vol. 59, no. 1, 2004, pp. 29–40, https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29. IEEE: [1] O. Ray, “How the mind hurts and heals the body,” Amer. Psychologist, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 29–40, 2004, doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29.
Crossref holds this title in title case. It is kept in sentence case for APA and IEEE, and MLA capitalises it again; IEEE abbreviates the journal name with its own word list.
Week 3 readings: - Ray, doi:10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29. - (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2) - arXiv:1706.03762v5
10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29 10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2 10.48550/arXiv.1706.03762
The full stop and brackets around a DOI are not part of it, and an arXiv identifier becomes the DOI arXiv registers with DataCite.
10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29 (BibTeX selected)
@article{ray2004how,
author = {Ray, Oakley},
title = {How the mind hurts and heals the body},
journal = {American Psychologist},
volume = {59},
number = {1},
publisher = {American Psychological Association (APA)},
pages = {29--40},
year = {2004},
doi = {10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29},
issn = {1935-990X}
}The key is the first author, the year and the first word of the title; a, b… are added when two works would share a key.
Common uses
- Turning the DOIs in a supervisor’s reading list or a paper’s reference section into a list in your course’s style.
- Getting BibTeX for a LaTeX thesis or an Overleaf project without opening each article page.
- Importing a batch of articles into EndNote, Zotero or Mendeley as one RIS file.
- Checking a DOI before submitting: doi.org says straight away when a DOI does not exist.
Where the details come from
- doi.org first says which registration agency holds each DOI, and whether the DOI exists at all, so a mistyped one is reported at once.
- Crossref (most journal articles, books and conference papers) sends its record directly. For a chapter or a conference paper in a book series, such as Lecture Notes in Computer Science, the book’s or the proceedings’ own title is used, not the series name. Requests are spaced out to stay within Crossref’s limits for its public API: five a second, one at a time (Crossref REST API access).
- DataCite (data sets, software, arXiv and other preprints), mEDRA, KISTI and the EU Publications Office answer through doi.org’s content negotiation.
- JaLC (Japan) and EIDR (film and television) do not let web pages read their records, so their DOIs are listed under Not found with a link: enter those by hand.
- Vancouver and AMA use MEDLINE journal abbreviations (N Engl J Med). Look up in the NLM Catalog asks the US National Library of Medicine’s catalogue for the journals in your list that have none.
Capital letters in titles
APA, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver and AMA write article titles in sentence case; MLA and Chicago capitalise the main words. Publishers deposit titles either way, so a title-cased record is put into sentence case, and MLA and Chicago capitalise it again as they format. A program cannot tell names from ordinary words, though: when a title names a person, place or organisation, open Edit and give it its capitals back. The entry says when its title was changed.
What you can export with a pass
- Copy list: formatted text with italics for Word, Google Docs and LibreOffice, and plain text for anything else.
- Word (.docx), RTF and Text: the list under the style’s heading (References, Works Cited, Bibliography), in Times New Roman 12 pt with hanging indents or numbers.
- BibTeX (.bib) for LaTeX and Overleaf, and RIS (.ris) for EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley and RefWorks.
- Add all to the Bibliography Maker: saves the list in this browser as a Bibliography Maker project you can keep adding to.
Limitations
- The details are only as good as the agency’s record: some give a book series instead of the book’s title, leave out pages, or write names in capitals. Compare each entry with the article’s first page.
- DOIs registered with JaLC and EIDR, and with agencies this page does not reach, cannot be looked up here; enter them by hand.
- A sentence-cased title may need its names of people, places and organisations re-capitalised.
- Up to 25 DOIs per press of the button: press it again for the next ones.
- An article link whose address holds no DOI (most journal pages other than the ones above) cannot be read: copy the DOI from the article page instead.
- A DOI is read up to the first space, quotation mark or angle bracket, the way DOIs are written in text. DOIs built on a SICI, such as Wiley’s older ones (10.1002/(SICI)1097-0258(19980430)17:8<857::AID-SIM777>3.0.CO;2-E), are recognised by their pattern; any other DOI with < or > in it is found only when it is alone on its line.
- The list lasts while the page is open. To keep it, download it or add it to the Bibliography Maker, with a pass or after unlocking it.
Privacy
Only the DOIs you look up leave your device — to doi.org and to the agency that registered each one — and, if you ask for MEDLINE abbreviations, the journal names or ISSNs to the NLM Catalog. No MySmartCoPilot server is involved. Your list stays in this tab; only your choice of style and settings is remembered on this device.
Frequently asked questions
What do I get without a pass?
Without a pass, DOI to Citation Converter shows the first words of each formatted reference (at most half of it, up to 100 words in all), with the checks on each entry and where its details came from. Until you unlock it, the result can’t be downloaded, copied or saved to your device. A Pro, Premium or Ultimate pass, a one-time payment that never renews, unlocks the full result. The pricing page lists the passes and their prices.
How do I turn a DOI into an APA citation?
Paste the DOI (for example 10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.29, or its https://doi.org/ link), press Get citations and keep APA 7 selected. The free preview shows the first words of the reference; with a pass it is shown in full with its parenthetical and narrative citations, and Copy puts it on the clipboard with its italics.
Can I convert many DOIs at once?
Yes. Paste up to 25 at a time — one per line, or any text with DOIs in it — and press Get citations; press it again for the next 25. Each run adds to the same list, and DOIs already in the list are skipped.
Why is a DOI listed as not found?
Most often it was mistyped: a DOI never contains spaces, and O and 0 or l and 1 are easy to confuse. doi.org also reports DOIs that were never registered. A few agencies, such as JaLC and EIDR, do not let web pages read their records: use Open the DOI to see the work and Enter by hand to cite it.
How is the DOI written in each style?
The APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard references here give it as a https://doi.org/ link; IEEE, Vancouver and AMA write “doi:” and the DOI. You can paste it in any of these forms.
Can I get BibTeX or RIS from a DOI?
Choose BibTeX or RIS above the list. The free preview shows the start of each entry; with a pass you see every entry in full, download a .bib or .ris file, and Every style on an entry shows its BibTeX and RIS too.
Are my DOIs sent to a MySmartCoPilot server?
No. Your browser asks doi.org and the registration agencies directly, only the DOIs leave your device, and the formatting is done in your browser.