Skip to main content

BibTeX Checker — Verify Your .bib File

Upload a .bib file or paste BibTeX entries. CiteMe looks up every entry in current academic indexes such as OpenAlex, CrossRef, PubMed, and Semantic Scholar and flags references with no matching record, wrong DOIs, and mismatched authors, titles, or years before you submit.

No signup · No credit card · Works in your browser

What to do next

Reference CheckerAPA to BibTeX ConverterReformat File

How does it work?

1

Step 1

Upload your .bib file

Drop the .bib file from Overleaf, Zotero, Mendeley, or JabRef, or paste the @article{…} entries. RIS files work too.

2

Step 2

Check every entry

CiteMe matches each entry by DOI, title, authors, and year against OpenAlex, CrossRef, PubMed, Semantic Scholar, and other academic indexes, and shows the record it found next to the entry as written.

3

Step 3

Fix and export

Accept corrections for mismatched entries, remove or replace references with no match, fill in missing DOIs, and export the corrected BibTeX back into your project.

By CiteMe Editorial Team·

Why check a .bib file before submission

A .bib file collects entries from many places: Google Scholar exports, publisher pages, a co-author's file, a reference manager, and more and more often an AI assistant. LaTeX compiles any entry that is syntactically valid, so a reference with a wrong DOI, a misattributed author, or no real publication behind it looks exactly like a correct one in the PDF. Reviewers, editors, and programme committees do check references, and an entry that cannot be found is hard to explain after submission.

What a BibTeX check catches that LaTeX does not

BibTeX and Biber stop at syntax: unbalanced braces, duplicate keys, a missing comma. They cannot tell whether "Smith 2021" exists. The checker compares each entry with publication records, so it catches the semantic errors: a DOI that resolves to a different paper, a title that drifted while being copied, a year from the preprint instead of the published version, or an entry with no record at all.

Fixing what the check finds

For entries with mismatched metadata, compare the "as written" fields with the record found and accept the correction. For entries with no match, search by DOI or title and replace the entry with one generated from the real record; if it came from an AI tool and nothing matches, remove it. Then add missing DOIs and export the corrected BibTeX back into your project.

Which citation styles are supported?

APAMLAChicagoHarvardIEEEVancouverABNTAMAASABluebookCSEOSCOLATurabianACSMHRAAPA 6thNaturePLOSScienceCellLancetAIPRSCAPSAAAAAGLCMcGillNP 405ISO 690ISO 690 (DE)ISO 690 (FR)ISO 690 (ES)Chicago NotesABNT Numérico

Need it in a specific citation style?

Format the result in the style your paper requires — APA, MLA, Harvard, Vancouver, Chicago, or IEEE.

APA Citation Generator

Author-date format for psychology, social sciences, and education.

MLA Citation Generator

Works Cited format for humanities and literature.

Harvard Referencing Generator

Author-date common in UK and Australian universities.

Vancouver Citation Generator

Numbered references for medicine and biomedical research.

Chicago Citation Generator

Notes-bibliography or author-date for history and the arts.

IEEE Citation Generator

Bracketed numbers for engineering and computer science.

Work on the bibliography

Reference Checker for pasted bibliographiesConvert APA or MLA references to BibTeXReformat BibTeX in any citation styleDOI to BibTeXExtract BibTeX from a PDF

Also try

Reference Checker

Verify your bibliography against academic databases

APA to BibTeX Converter

Paste an APA, MLA, or any formatted reference and get a BibTeX entry for Overleaf and LaTeX

Reformat File

Convert BibTeX or RIS files to any citation style

Frequently asked questions

What does the BibTeX checker verify?
Each entry in your .bib file is matched against academic records by DOI, title, authors, and year. The report shows which entries were found, which found a record with different metadata (a wrong DOI, a misspelled title, a shifted year, a different first author), and which returned no matching record at all. Every match shows the source it came from, so you can compare the entry as written with the record found.
Can it find fake or hallucinated references in a .bib file?
It finds entries that do not match any record in the indexes consulted, which is how AI-invented references usually show up: a plausible title, real-looking authors, and no publication behind them. "No match" is a review signal, not proof of fabrication: very new papers, regional journals, and some theses or reports can be missing from the indexes, so check those entries by hand.
Does it check BibTeX syntax?
It reads standard BibTeX entries (@article, @book, @inproceedings, @incollection, @phdthesis, @misc, and the other common types), but it is not a syntax linter: it does not report unbalanced braces, duplicate keys, or style rules such as brace-protected capitalisation. It checks whether each reference is real and whether its metadata is right.
Can it add missing DOIs to my references?
Yes. After the check, entries that matched a record without a DOI can be looked up again in OpenAlex and CrossRef, and the DOI is filled in when a confident match is found. You then export the corrected list.
How do I get the corrected .bib back into Overleaf?
Export the corrected list as BibTeX (or BibLaTeX) and replace the file in your Overleaf project, or import it into Zotero, Mendeley, or JabRef. You can also export it as a formatted Word or PDF bibliography in APA, IEEE, Vancouver, or any of 60+ styles. BibTeX, RIS, BibLaTeX, Word, and PDF exports are Pro; CSV and CSL-JSON exports are free.
Is the BibTeX checker free?
Yes. Without an account you can check up to 10 entries per run, up to 5 checks per month on a shared IP quota and at most 3 per day. A Free account has its own 3-check monthly quota and accepts longer files. Pro removes the monthly limit and unlocks the corrected-file exports.

Other tools

Generate Citations

Convert & Import

Each result shows its match evidence and metadata source.

Use inside CiteMe →
← All tools