RIS to APA Citation Converter

Convert RIS records to APA 7th edition citations in seconds. Paste an export from Zotero, EndNote, or Mendeley and copy the APA result. No sign-up.

Paste an RIS record to get a APA citation

What is RIS?

RIS is a plain-text reference format created by Research Information Systems and still used as the standard export format by EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, Web of Science, Scopus, and most library databases. Each record is a block of two-letter tags: TY marks the reference type, AU lines carry one author each, TI holds the title, PY the year, SP and EP the page range, and ER closes the record. Because every field is tagged, an RIS record converts cleanly – CiteTools maps each tag onto its citation data model and renders the reference in the style you choose. This page is the fast path when a database hands you an .ris file but your bibliography needs formatted text: open the file in any text editor, copy a record, and paste it here.

How the RIS to APA conversion works

Open your exported .ris file in a text editor and copy one or more records.
Paste them into the input field; CiteTools reads the tagged fields directly.
Copy each formatted citation, or convert the whole batch at once.

Example input:

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Harris, Charles R.
AU  - Millman, K. Jarrod
TI  - Array programming with NumPy
JO  - Nature
VL  - 585
SP  - 357
EP  - 362
PY  - 2020
DO  - 10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2
ER  -

About APA Style

American Psychological Association - commonly used in psychology, education, and social sciences.

APA 7th edition is the default style in psychology, education, nursing, and most social sciences. References use initials for given names, sentence case for article titles, italics for journal names, and a DOI rendered as a full https://doi.org URL. CiteTools applies these rules for you, including the ampersand before the final author and the (n.d.) form when no date exists.

Frequently asked questions

How do I export RIS from my reference manager?

In Zotero use File > Export Library and pick RIS. In EndNote choose the RefMan (RIS) output option. Most databases – Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed – offer an RIS or citation-manager export on every record page.

Can I paste more than one RIS record?

Yes. Paste several records – each ending in its ER tag – separated by blank lines, and CiteTools converts up to 100 of them in one batch.

Which RIS tags does the APA output use?

TY, AU, TI, T2 or JO, PY, VL, IS, SP, EP, DO, and UR cover everything a APA reference needs. Unknown tags are ignored rather than causing an error.