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PDF to EndNote — Extract & Import References

Drop a PDF bibliography and get an RIS file ready for EndNote X9, X20, or EndNote Web. References are extracted server-side, then likely records are matched against current academic sources.

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What to do next

Try Zotero InsteadTry Mendeley InsteadExport as BibTeX Instead

How does it work?

1

Step 1

Upload your PDF

Drop a PDF with a references section (paper, thesis, report). GROBID extracts the bibliography server-side with ~97.5% accuracy.

2

Step 2

Review extracted references

CiteMe shows the parsed references with DOI and metadata verified against academic databases. Uncheck any incorrect entries before export.

3

Step 3

Download RIS for EndNote

Get a .ris file ready to import into EndNote X9, EndNote X20, or EndNote Web. File → Import → choose "Reference Manager (RIS)" in EndNote.

By CiteMe Editorial Team·

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.

More ways to look up sources

PDF to RIS (universal format)PDF to BibTeXReference CheckerDOI to EndNote

This tool in other languages

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Also try

PDF to Zotero

Extract references from a PDF and import into Zotero

PDF to Mendeley

Extract references from a PDF and import into Mendeley

PDF to BibTeX

Extract references from a PDF and export as BibTeX

Frequently asked questions

How do I import extracted references into EndNote?
Download the .ris file from CiteMe, then in EndNote open File → Import → File. Choose "Reference Manager (RIS)" as the Import Option. Your references appear with author, title, journal, and DOI fields populated.
Which EndNote versions are supported?
Any version that accepts RIS imports — EndNote X9, EndNote 20, EndNote 21, EndNote Web (online), and EndNote for iPad. The .ris file is plain text with tagged fields (TY, AU, TI, JO, DO, ...) and works across all modern reference managers.
Does it work on scanned PDFs?
Partially. GROBID works best on PDFs with embedded text (digital exports, LaTeX/Word output). For scanned images you'd need OCR first — CiteMe doesn't OCR scanned PDFs today, so the extraction will miss references if the PDF is image-only.
Does the extracted RIS file include page numbers, DOIs, and abstracts?
Page numbers, DOIs, volume, issue, and publication year come through reliably — GROBID extracts these from the original references section of the PDF. Abstracts are NOT included: GROBID captures bibliography metadata, not the full abstracts of cited papers. If you need abstracts, run the imported references through EndNote's "Find Reference Updates" against PubMed after import.
How is this different from EndNote's built-in PDF import?
EndNote's built-in PDF import reads metadata from a single PDF file (the paper itself). CiteMe extracts the entire bibliography — every reference cited by that paper — in one pass. Opposite direction: EndNote answers "what is this PDF?", CiteMe answers "what does this PDF cite?"

Other tools

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Each result shows its match evidence and metadata source.

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