How to Import a Reference List into Zotero, EndNote or Mendeley

The official documentation for Zotero, EndNote, and Mendeley doesn't offer a built-in way to paste formatted reference text and have it split into individual entries. The fastest documented route is to convert your references to DOIs, then feed the DOIs into your reference manager. If most of your references are journal articles or books with DOIs, this is quick. If they aren't, the other options all involve more manual work.

What the docs do offer are import paths for structured file formats like RIS and BibTeX, identifier-based lookup where you paste DOIs, and in EndNote's case a paste-into-title-field workaround. The routes below come from each tool's docs.

All three want machine-readable files or identifiers, not formatted citation text. Here's what each officially accepts:

• Zotero — Import from Clipboard accepts "the raw code of any supported format (RIS, BibTeX, CSL JSON, etc.)." A formatted bibliography in APA or another citation style is not on that list.
• Mendeley — "Import a BibTeX, RIS or EndNote XML file." The official pages don't mention importing from a text bibliography.
• EndNote — Text import requires consistently "tagged" data, with each tag on a new line. A plain formatted bibliography can't be imported as-is.

Google Scholar can export individual references to BibTeX, EndNote, RefMan, or RefWorks, but one at a time.

If your references are mostly journal articles, books, or book chapters, Crossref's Simple Text Query tool can turn your pasted text into DOIs. The Crossref documentation (Simple Text Query) describes it this way:

The Simple Text Query form allows you to retrieve DOI names for journal articles, books, and chapters by cutting and pasting a reference or reference list into the query box.

Crossref's guidance says to put each reference on a single line and separate them with a blank line. You can enter them in alphabetical order or as a numbered list. The tool handles up to 1,000 references per submission. What comes back is DOI links, not RIS or BibTeX files. Coverage is limited to journal articles, books, and chapters, so web pages, reports, and dissertations without DOIs won't be found. The official documentation doesn't say whether you need an account. Once you have the DOIs, Zotero can add them in bulk. The Zotero documentation (Adding Items to Zotero) explains:

To add more than one item, separate identifiers by spaces, commas, or line breaks.

You click the Add Item by Identifier button in the toolbar, paste your DOIs, and Zotero looks up the details for each one (its documentation says it uses CrossRef and other registries for DOIs), so you don't type them in by hand.

When many of your references don't have DOIs, Zotero's own documentation addresses the scenario directly (KB article: "I have bibliographies in Microsoft Word documents, PDFs, and other text files. Can I import them into my Zotero library?"). The options it lists, in order, are:

• AnyStyle — described in Zotero's documentation as "an online bibliography parser written by a Zotero developer." You paste your references, it parses them, and you export as BibTeX or CSL-JSON to import into Zotero.
• ChatGPT or other AI systems — Zotero's documentation says "some people have also had success" using AI to parse bibliographies and generate BibTeX or CSL-JSON, but warns you should "check the output carefully for errors."
• Search and save — find each item online by searching the web for the citation, then save it to Zotero with the Zotero Connector. The documentation notes this helps you get "high-quality data that includes all fields that might be necessary in the citation style you're using."
• Manual entry — typed by hand, described in the documentation as "a last resort."

Zotero's documentation also notes that in all cases, you'll need to replace existing citations in your document if you want Zotero to generate a correct bibliography. One separate case: if your references were originally inserted using Word's built-in Citation & Bibliography feature (not hand-typed text), Zotero's documentation gives steps involving a BibTeX export bibliography style that lets you copy the bibliography out and import it via clipboard.

EndNote takes a different approach. Its official documentation (Copying and Pasting References from a Document into EndNote) describes a copy-and-paste method:

This will paste the entire reference into the Title field of the Reference window. From here, you can drag-and-drop (or cut and paste) the individual pieces of data into their proper fields. Be sure to remove extraneous punctuation, and make sure author names are each on a separate line.

That means creating a new reference for each entry, pasting the whole thing into the Title field, then dragging author names, year, and other details into their correct fields. It avoids retyping, but it's one reference at a time. EndNote can also import RIS files (Import Option "Reference Manager (RIS)"). The official pages don't name BibTeX as an import format. Mendeley imports BibTeX, RIS, or EndNote XML files, and can look up a reference by DOI one entry at a time. The official Mendeley pages don't mention importing from a text bibliography. One workable route (our inference, not an official tutorial): Zotero exports RIS, and both EndNote and Mendeley import RIS, so you could run the text-to-DOI-to-Zotero pipeline, then export from Zotero as RIS into either tool.

The Zotero documentation (Adding Items to Zotero) advises always checking items for accuracy after saving them to your library, and that goes for any reference manager. After importing, go through your library and check:

• Author names are split correctly (each on a separate line in the author field)
• Titles, journal names, volume, issue, and page numbers match the originals
• Publication years are present and correct
• Each DOI points to the article you meant
• Entries from AI parsing or AnyStyle are checked field by field, since Zotero's documentation warns about this

If your goal is just to switch citation styles in a finished document, say APA to GB/T 7714, and you don't need the references in a manager at all, there's another option. HumanPen's citation format correction is designed to "convert in-text citations and the reference list to a target style, leaving the rest of your text unchanged." It accepts .docx files and returns the same format, supports APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago (author-date and notes), IEEE, Vancouver, GB/T 7714, and several more, at about 10 credits per 1,000 words, charged only when the job succeeds. For what to do when a reference manager's export comes out in the wrong style, see this guide on fixing export format problems.