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Free BibTeX Formatter & Deduplicator

Text Tools

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Entries

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Duplicates removed

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Warnings

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Parse errors

What is Free BibTeX Formatter & Deduplicator?

BibTeX Formatter cleans and normalises BibTeX bibliography files. BibTeX is the de facto reference format used by LaTeX and many academic tooling chains. Long .bib files accumulate inconsistent indentation, duplicate keys imported from multiple sources, and entries missing required fields - all of which break compilation or produce silently wrong bibliographies. This tool parses each entry, sorts and dedupes the list, reformats with consistent indentation, and surfaces warnings for entries missing the fields BibTeX styles expect.

How it works

A lightweight parser walks each @type{key, …} block, splits fields on top-level commas while respecting braces and quoted strings, then reassembles the entry with the chosen indent and alphabetical field order. Sort and dedupe run on the parsed list before re-emission. Required-field checks consult a per-entry-type table (article needs author/title/journal/year, book needs publisher, and so on).

Features & Benefits

  • Sorts entries by key, year, or first author
  • Removes duplicate citation keys while keeping the first occurrence
  • Flags missing required fields per entry type (article, book, inproceedings, etc.)
  • Runs entirely in your browser - your bibliography never leaves the page

Frequently Asked Questions

Does it edit my file in place?

No. It runs in your browser and only shows the formatted output - you copy it back to your file yourself.

What entry types are validated?

Common types: article, book, inproceedings, incollection, techreport, phdthesis, mastersthesis, misc, unpublished. Unknown types are kept as-is without warnings.

How does dedupe decide what to keep?

The first occurrence of each citation key is kept; subsequent entries with the same key are dropped.

Is my bibliography sent anywhere?

No. Parsing, sorting, dedupe, and formatting all run client-side.

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