BibTeX to JSON Converter
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Paste a .bib file and get CSL-JSON back – the standard JSON shape used by Pandoc, Hugo, Quarto, citeproc-js, and any tool that speaks Citation Style Language. Nested authors stay structured, dates use the CSL date-parts array, identifiers (DOI, ISBN, ISSN, PMID) stay separate. Drop straight into a static-site generator or an analysis script.
How to convert BibTeX to JSON online
thelatexlab.com/bibtex-to-json/ for next time..bib
Drop a .bib file using the upload button, or paste the BibTeX text directly. Accent macros (\"a, \'e) decode back to UTF-8. Brace-protected acronyms ({DNA}) keep the braces stripped – JSON’s the wrong place to store BibTeX-specific case protection.jq -c compacts if you need single-line records..bib content never leaves the tab. Entries that fail to parse show up inline with the reason so you can fix or drop them without losing the rest of the batch.Where most BibTeX to JSON converters break
{"booktitle": "...", "year": "2023"}. That works for storage but not for any downstream tool that expects CSL-JSON – which uses different field names (container-title, not booktitle; issued.date-parts, not year; author as an array of objects, not a string). The tool emits canonical CSL-JSON, the shape Pandoc, Hugo, Quarto, and citeproc-js all expect."LeCun, Yann and Bengio, Yoshua and Hinton, Geoffrey" – a single string with a known separator. CSL-JSON expects "author": [{"family": "LeCun", "given": "Yann"}, ...] – structured. Converters that don’t split the string lose the ability to render names in styles that need first-name-first vs last-name-first vs initials-only. The tool splits per the BibTeX convention.date-parts
CSL-JSON dates are arrays: "issued": {"date-parts": [[2023, 5, 28]]} – one element per granularity component. Converters that emit "year": "2023" as a string break any downstream tool that wants to compare or sort by date. The tool emits the date-parts shape, with the granularity that the source provides (year only, year+month, or full date).date-parts
structured dates@article maps to CSL type article-journal; @inproceedings maps to paper-conference; @phdthesis maps to thesis with a genre field. A converter that passes the BibTeX type name through verbatim breaks downstream CSL renderers that key off the canonical type vocabulary. The tool maps types according to the CSL spec.DOI, ISBNs under ISBN, ISSNs under ISSN, URLs under URL – the CSL convention. Page ranges live in page as a string. The output validates against the CSL-JSON schema on the citation-style-language repository.Frequently asked questions
Field names. CSL-JSON uses CSL’s vocabulary – container-title, issued.date-parts, author[].family, type: article-journal. A naive BibTeX as JSON keeps BibTeX’s names – booktitle, year, author as a string, type: article. The CSL form is what every modern citeproc tool (Pandoc, Quarto, Hugo, Jekyll-Scholar) expects.
Yes. Pandoc and Quarto both accept CSL-JSON for --bibliography / bibliography:. Save the output as references.json and point your build at it. Hugo with the hugo-cite / academic module reads CSL-JSON the same way. Most static-site bibliography tools that aren’t BibTeX-specific use CSL-JSON.
Three common culprits: (1) the file is actually RIS, EndNote, or NBIB; (2) a missing closing brace – one bad entry blocks the parser at that point; (3) @string macros without definitions. Each failing entry shows up inline with the reason.
Yes. JSON is plain UTF-8, so Kr{\"a}mer becomes diacritics like Krämer and École come through correctly. Brace-protected acronyms ({DNA}) lose the braces; if you need to preserve case for a downstream renderer, that’s a CSL style concern not a JSON concern.
Free, no signup. Parsing and writing 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.
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