URL to BibTeX Converter

🔗 URL to BibTeX converter for papers and web pages

URL to BibTeX Converter turns article, paper, book, DOI, PubMed, arXiv, and web page URLs into source-backed BibTeX citations. Add one URL or paste a batch, then export BibTeX, citation keys, structured authors, identifiers, abstracts when the source provides them, and metadata from a clean Apify dataset.

Use it when you are building a reading list, cleaning references for LaTeX, preparing research notes, checking citations before import, or moving citation data into another workflow. The Actor works with public citation sources and web pages. It does not need cookies, a source account, a browser extension, or a third-party citation API key from you.

For a quick first run, keep the prefilled arXiv URL. You can then add PubMed pages, DOI links such as https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2, publisher article pages with citation metadata, or normal web pages that expose useful metadata.

✅ What this Actor does

• Converts one or many public URLs into BibTeX.
• Supports arXiv, PubMed, DOI metadata, publisher/article metadata, and generic web page metadata when available.
• Saves one dataset row per successfully converted citation.
• Generates stable BibTeX citation keys from source metadata.
• Lets you set one custom citation key for a single URL.
• Lets you add a shared prefix to generated keys in batch runs.
• Lets you auto-detect the BibTeX entry type or force a type such as article, book, inproceedings, techreport, or misc.
• Includes source URLs and source-native abstracts when available.
• Returns normalized identifiers such as DOI, arXiv ID, PMID, and ISBN when found.
• Adds completeness signals so you can review citations with missing title, author, or year data.

The Actor does not invent missing citation facts. If a source does not expose an author, date, DOI, abstract, or venue, the matching field is returned as null or listed in completeness.missingFields.

📦 Data you can extract

Each output row is one converted citation. Rows can include:

Field	Description
sourceUrl	URL you submitted.
resolvedUrl	Final URL or source metadata endpoint used for the citation.
sourceType	Source family such as arxiv, pubmed, doi, publisher, or generic.
citationKey	Generated or custom BibTeX key.
entryType	BibTeX entry type used in the final citation.
title, authors, authorsText	Title and author data found on the source.
year, publicationDate, venue	Publication timing and container data when found.
identifiers	DOI, arXiv ID, PMID, or ISBN values when available.
abstract	Source-native abstract or description when available.
bibtex	Ready-to-copy BibTeX entry.
cslJson	CSL JSON-compatible metadata when enough source data exists.
metadataSources	Metadata groups used to build the citation.
completeness	Missing key fields and whether the citation is complete enough for normal BibTeX use.
scrapedAt	UTC timestamp for the conversion.

🧪 Output example

{
  "sourceUrl": "https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762",
  "sourceType": "arxiv",
  "citationKey": "Vaswani2017attention",
  "entryType": "article",
  "title": "Attention Is All You Need",
  "authorsText": "Ashish Vaswani, Noam Shazeer",
  "year": "2017",
  "identifiers": {
    "doi": "10.48550/arXiv.1706.03762",
    "arxivId": "1706.03762",
    "pmid": null,
    "isbn": null
  },
  "bibtex": "@article{Vaswani2017attention,...}",
  "metadataSources": ["arXiv Atom"],
  "completeness": {
    "missingFields": [],
    "isCompleteEnoughForBibTeX": true
  }
}

🧭 How to run it

1. Paste one or more URLs into Citation URLs.
2. Leave BibTeX entry type on Auto-detect unless you need to force a specific type.
3. Optional: add Custom citation key for a single URL, or Citation key prefix for a batch.
4. Run the Actor and open the dataset.
5. Copy the bibtex field or export all rows as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or HTML.

You can run it in Apify Console, call it from the Apify API, schedule repeat runs, use webhooks, or connect the dataset to another integration.

🔎 URL to BibTeX converter coverage

This BibTeX converter is built for public URLs that expose citation or page metadata. It was validated with arXiv papers, PubMed pages, DOI metadata, and generic documentation pages. DOI links use citation metadata where available, which can be more reliable than scraping a publisher page that blocks automated HTML access.

Generic web pages vary a lot. Pages with JSON-LD, Open Graph, Dublin Core, citation meta tags, or normal title/description metadata usually produce better rows than pages with little public metadata.

💰 Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing. You are charged once for each successfully converted citation row.

• Free tier: $1.80 per 1,000 converted citations.
• Bronze tier: $1.50 per 1,000 converted citations.
• Silver tier: $1.15 per 1,000 converted citations.
• Gold, Platinum, and Diamond tiers: $0.90 per 1,000 converted citations.

Failed or skipped URLs are not saved as primary citation rows.

⚠️ Limits and caveats

• The Actor accepts up to 1,000 URL targets per run.
• It works with public pages and public citation metadata only.
• It does not extract citations from uploaded PDFs or parse reference lists from documents.
• It does not generate APA, MLA, Chicago, RIS, or EndNote exports.
• It does not infer missing facts with AI.
• Some publisher pages may expose limited metadata or block direct page access. DOI metadata can still work for many DOI URLs.

❓ FAQ

Can I convert a DOI to BibTeX?

Yes. Paste a DOI URL such as https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2. The Actor uses DOI citation metadata when available.

Can I convert PubMed or arXiv URLs to BibTeX?

Yes. PubMed and arXiv are first-class source paths. Rows can include PMID or arXiv IDs, titles, authors, dates, abstracts, and BibTeX.

Does it include abstracts?

Yes, when the source provides a source-native abstract or description. There is no toggle because useful source-backed citation data is included by default.

Does it need a citation API key?

No. The public product contract does not require a source API key, source account, cookies, or user credentials.

📝 Changelog

• 0.1: Initial release.

🆘 Support

For issues, questions, or feature requests, file a ticket and I'll fix or implement it in less than 24h 🫡

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Made with ❤️ by Maxime Dupré