Tools

BibTeX to Vancouver Converter

Free. No signup. Runs in your browser.

Paste or upload a .bib file and get a numbered Vancouver reference list, the style recommended by the ICMJE and used by most medical journals. Copy it into your manuscript and the formatting comes with it.

How to convert BibTeX to Vancouver

Step 1

Add your BibTeX

Use Upload file, drop the .bib on the box, or paste the entries.

Step 2

Convert

Vancouver is already selected on this page.

Step 3

Copy

Copy all puts the numbered list on your clipboard.

References are numbered in the order of your .bib. Vancouver numbers them in the order they are first cited, so put the entries in that order first.

What a Vancouver reference looks like

  1. Zeta Y, Bengio Y, Hinton G. Deep learning. Nature. 2015;521(7553):436–44.
  • Authors: surname and initials, no full stops. Up to six are listed; with seven or more, the first six and "et al."
  • Article titles in sentence case, which the converter does not do for you: titles come out as your .bib has them. Write them in sentence case in the .bib, with names and acronyms in braces ({Bayesian}, {DNA}).
  • Journal, then year;volume(issue):pages, with the last page shortened (436–44).
  • Books: place, publisher and year: Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2016.

Check these before you use the list

  • Journal abbreviations. Vancouver uses NLM abbreviations (N Engl J Med, BMJ). The converter prints the journal name in your .bib, so abbreviate it there.
  • Your journal's own version. Many journals tweak Vancouver (DOIs, "et al." after three). Check the author guidelines and adjust.

Frequently asked questions

Vancouver is the ICMJE recommendation, and its detailed rules come from the NLM guide Citing Medicine, so "NLM style" and "Vancouver" usually mean the same thing. AMA is a separate, similar numbered style used by JAMA and many US journals; see BibTeX to AMA.

Yes: \bibliographystyle{vancouver} with natbib or plain \bibliography, or the biblatex-vancouver package.

If an entry has a syntax error, the result lists it with its line number and reason, and the other entries still convert.

It is free and needs no signup. Your .bib is read in your browser and never sent to our server.

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