Vancouver Citation Generator
Free. No signup. Runs in your browser.
Paste a PubMed ID or DOI and get a numbered Vancouver reference, the style medical journals call ICMJE or NLM style. Authors, the abbreviated journal name and the shortened page range come from the PubMed or CrossRef record. Upload a .nbib export from PubMed for a whole list.
How to create Vancouver references
Step 1
Paste your sources in citation order
Vancouver numbers references by first citation, so paste them in the order they appear in your paper. PubMed IDs, DOIs and their links, up to 50, one per line, or upload a .nbib, RIS or .bib file.
Step 2
Choose Reference list
Vancouver is already the style. Reference list numbers the set 1 to n; In-text citation gives (1).
Step 3
Copy
Copy all takes the numbered list as plain text: Vancouver uses no italics.
Vancouver reference examples
Real references from the generator.
Journal article, seven or more authors
1. Polack FP, Thomas SJ, Kitchin N, Absalon J, Gurtman A, Lockhart S, et al. Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine. N Engl J Med. 2020;383(27):2603–15.
Journal article, up to six authors
2. LeCun Y, Bengio Y, Hinton G. Deep learning. Nature. 2015 May 28;521(7553):436–44.
Book
3. Kahneman D. Thinking, fast and slow. Penguin; 2012.
Chapter in an edited book (from a .bib entry)
4. Rumelhart DE, Hinton GE, Williams RJ. Learning representations by back-propagating errors. In: Anderson JA, Rosenfeld E, editors. Neurocomputing: Foundations of research. MIT Press; 1988. p. 696–9.
The Vancouver format, in short
If you came to check the rules, this is the whole format.
- Numbering: each source gets a number the first time you cite it and keeps it. The reference list runs in that order, not alphabetically.
- In the text: the number in parentheses, (1), or square brackets or superscript if your journal says so. Page numbers do not go in the citation.
- Authors: surname and initials, no full stops, separated by commas. The first six, then et al. for seven or more.
- Titles: sentence case, no quotation marks, no italics. The generator keeps each title as the publisher registered it, so lowercase one that arrives in Title Case, like the NEJM title above, keeping names.
- Journal: the NLM abbreviation, N Engl J Med. If a record comes back with the full name, look it up in the NLM Catalog.
- Date, volume, issue, pages: 2015 May 28;521(7553):436–44 when the record has the full date, 2020;383(27):2603–15 when it has only the year. The last page is shortened to the digits that change.
- DOI: not part of the classic format and not printed by the generator. Many journals now ask for it: add doi: and the DOI at the end if yours does.
The full rules are in Citing Medicine, the NLM's free guide on NCBI Bookshelf.
Frequently asked questions
List the first six authors; with seven or more, add et al. after the sixth. AMA differs: it keeps only the first three.
Yes, in practice. ICMJE recommends it, the NLM publishes the detailed rules, and Vancouver is the common name. AMA is a separate style that looks similar; use the AMA citation generator for that.
No. The number alone points to the reference. If you need a specific page, put it in your sentence. The page box in the tool has no effect for this style.
Vancouver prints only the digits that change: 2603–2615 becomes 2603–15. It is the correct form, not a typo.
Not with the generator, which works from PubMed, CrossRef, arXiv and book records. Websites need [Internet], the date cited and the URL, written by hand.
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