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BibTeX to Chicago Converter

Free. No signup. Runs in your browser.

Paste a bib file and convert it to Chicago author-date bibliography back. The official CSL Chicago Author-Date style file is used (17th edition, the same one Zotero ships), accent macros render correctly, and entry types can be overridden per row. The notes-bibliography variant is a different style file – see the FAQ.

How to convert BibTeX to Chicago online

Visit the BibTeX to Chicago tool page You’re already here. Bookmark thelatexlab.com/bibtex-to-chicago/ for next time.
Step 1
Upload or paste your .bib Drop a .bib file using the upload button, or paste the BibTeX text directly. Single entries and large libraries both work.
Step 2
Confirm Chicago author-date is what you want Chicago has two systems: author-date (in-text “(Smith 2020)” + reference list, used in the sciences) and notes-bibliography (footnotes + bibliography, used in humanities). The output here is author-date. If your field uses notes-bibliography (history, art history, literature), you’ll need a different style file.
Step 3
Convert, then copy or download Each entry renders as a formatted reference with a per-row entry-type override and Copy button. Use Copy all at the bottom to grab the whole list in one go.
Step 4
Parsing and rendering both happen in your browser – the .bib content never leaves the tab. Entries that fail to render show up inline with the reason so you can fix or drop them without losing the rest of the batch.

Where most BibTeX to Chicago converters break

They render an older Chicago edition Chicago Manual of Style is on its 17th edition (2017). Earlier editions (16th, 15th) had different rules around URLs, e-book editions, and access dates. Plenty of free converters still ship the 15th or 16th edition – or a custom interpretation of either. The tool uses the official Chicago author-date style from the CSL Style Repository – the same source Zotero, Mendeley, and Pandoc use – which tracks the 17th edition.
17th edition official CSL repo
Notes-bibliography rendered as if it were author-date Some converters render one Chicago variant and label it “Chicago” without naming the system. Author-date and notes-bibliography format references differently – notes-bibliography puts the author’s first name first (“Karen Smith”), author-date puts last name first (“Smith, Karen”), and they handle multi-author entries differently in subsequent references. The output here is explicitly author-date; notes-bibliography needs a different style file.
named system author-date, not NB
Accent macros end up in the output A BibTeX entry with author = {Kr{\"a}mer, M.} should render as “Krämer, M.” in the output. Converters that don’t parse BibTeX accent macros either pass them through (Kr"amer) or crash. The tool uses Citation.js’ BibTeX parser, which handles the full accent-macro set, brace-nested protection, and BibLaTeX field aliases.
Krämer, M. accent macros parsed
Entry type tagged wrong upstream An entry tagged @article renders very differently from one tagged @inproceedings or @incollection under Chicago. CrossRef and many reference managers mis-tag conference papers and book chapters routinely. The tool exposes a per-row entry-type override that switches the type and re-renders the citation without leaving the page.
Override per-result dropdown
Output is plain text by default. For HTML with italics on book and journal titles, switch the To pill to “HTML” and re-render. CJK / Arabic / Cyrillic names pass through the renderer correctly but your final document needs a font that has glyphs for the script.

Frequently asked questions

Author-date. The author-date system – in-text parentheticals like “(Smith 2020)” + a reference list – is the Chicago variant most science and social-science journals use. Notes-bibliography (numbered footnotes + a full bibliography) is the variant most humanities fields use; it needs a different style file. If you’ve been told to “use Chicago” without further detail, check the journal’s own examples: parenthetical = author-date, footnote = notes-bibliography.

17th edition (2017), the current one. The differences from the 16th edition are concentrated in URL handling, e-book editions, access dates, and a few formatting tweaks – if your style guide still references the 16th edition, the output will mostly match. Earlier editions diverge enough that you’ll want to adjust by hand.

Three common culprits: (1) the file is actually RIS, EndNote, or NBIB (use /ris-to-bibtex/, /endnote-to-bibtex/, or /nbib-to-bibtex/); (2) a missing closing brace – one bad entry blocks the parser at that point; (3) @string macros without definitions, common in journal-shorthand .bib files. Each failing entry shows up inline with the reason.

The default output is the reference list, plain text. Switch to HTML for italic book and journal titles and proper hanging indent. In-text citations like “(Smith 2020)” aren’t part of the standard bibliography render – they’re a separate CSL output mode that needs the surrounding sentence for context. For now, build them by hand from the reference-list output.

Free, no signup. Parsing and rendering both run entirely in your browser – the .bib file or pasted text never touches our server, no network call is made. The output exists in your browser session and disappears when you close the tab.

Yes – reference cleanup at thesis scale is a service. See our thesis LaTeX formatting service (handles the bibliography along with the rest of the thesis), and email [email protected] with the manuscript and the target style guide for a quote.

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