PDF to citation
Drop your PDFs. Get a reference list.
Select the article PDFs you've been reading and drop them on RefRunner, all at once. Each paper is identified from its DOI — or its title page when there is no DOI — checked against Crossref, and written up as a reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, or any of 10,000+ styles.
No account needed to try it — check our sample or upload your own paper, free and right in your browser.
A free account adds 50 lookups a day, saved reference lists, and free months when you refer colleagues.
📱 On a phone? Create a free account now and your reference lists will be waiting when start working on your paper.
How it works
Select two or more PDFs
In your Downloads folder or reference folder, select the articles you want to cite and drag them onto the page.
Each paper is looked up
RefRunner finds the DOI in each PDF (or reads the title and authors from page one) and pulls the publisher's own record: authors, year, volume, issue, pages.
Pick a style and export
Choose APA, MLA, Chicago, or your journal's style. Copy the list, or export it to BibTeX or RIS for Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote.
Questions
How do I make a citation from a PDF?
Drop the PDF on RefRunner together with any others you need. RefRunner reads the DOI printed in each article, looks it up at Crossref, and writes the reference in the style you pick. No typing.
What if the PDF has no DOI?
RefRunner reads the title and authors from the first page and searches Crossref, OpenAlex, ERIC and the Library of Congress for the published record. Book chapters, older articles, and papers from journals that don't print DOIs are usually found this way.
Can I turn a whole folder of PDFs into a bibliography?
Yes — select every PDF in the folder and drop them in one go. Each paper becomes one entry in the list, formatted in APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, Vancouver, or any of 10,000+ citation styles, ready to copy or export to BibTeX or RIS.
Are my PDFs uploaded anywhere?
No. The PDFs are read inside your browser. Only the DOI or title is sent to the public bibliographic databases to look it up.
Why drop two or more to start?
On an empty page, a single PDF is treated as your manuscript: RefRunner checks the references inside it. Two or more at once are treated as papers to cite. Once your list has something in it, drop PDFs one at a time or in batches — each is added to the list.
What won't work?
Scanned PDFs with no text layer (pages that are only images) have no DOI or title to read. Search for those by author and title in the live search box instead.
No account needed to try it — check our sample or upload your own paper, free and right in your browser.
A free account adds 50 lookups a day, saved reference lists, and free months when you refer colleagues.
📱 On a phone? Create a free account now and your reference lists will be waiting when start working on your paper.