Tool for generating a website's BibTex using the URL?

Question

Is there an existing tool for generating BibTeX of a website using its URL? What I'm thinking is something like a web tool or a Python script that does this.

Answer 1

I'm using Zotero, a Firefox plugin, to collect and maintain my references. It has to possiblity to export to BibTeX and to generate an entry from a website. It supports several online formats for references, like Google Scholar or the IEEE Explorer website and can extract the data from them directly. For general websites it produces a generic entry.

For example it generated this entry from this very page:

@misc{_citing_????,
    title = {citing - Tool for generating a website's {BibTex} using the {URL?} - {TeX} - {LaTeX} - Stack Exchange},
    url = {http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/32955/tool-for-generating-a-websites-bibtex-using-the-url},
    howpublished = {http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/32955/tool-for-generating-a-websites-bibtex-using-the-url}
}

Answer 2

A generic (reference manager and browser independent) solution:

1. Create a new bookmark in the bookmark panel of your browser.

2. Name it ("🌐 ➜ 📚" or whatever).

3. URL: Insert this:

   javascript:"use strict";(function(){var _document$querySelect,_document$querySelect2,_document$querySelect3;function copyToClipboard(text){window.prompt("Copy to clipboard: Ctrl+C, Enter",text)}function jsDate2bibTex(date){var dd=date.getDate();var mm=date.getMonth()+1;var yyyy=date.getFullYear();if(dd<10){dd="0"+dd}if(mm<10){mm="0"+mm}return yyyy+"-"+mm+"-"+dd}function date2YearTex(date){var yyyy=date.getFullYear();return""+yyyy}var title=document.title;var url=document.URL;var author_tag=document.querySelector("[name=author]");var author=author_tag==null?"":author_tag.content;var today=new Date;var urldate=jsDate2bibTex(today);var publishedTime=(_document$querySelect=document.querySelector('meta[property="article:published_time"'))===null||_document$querySelect===void 0?void 0:_document$querySelect.getAttribute("content");var someTimeTag=(_document$querySelect2=document.querySelector("time[datetime]"))===null||_document$querySelect2===void 0?void 0:_document$querySelect2.getAttribute("datetime");var someTimeTagWithoutDatetime=(_document$querySelect3=document.querySelector("time"))===null||_document$querySelect3===void 0?void 0:_document$querySelect3.innerHTML;var lastModifiedTime=document.lastModified;var pageTime=new Date(publishedTime||someTimeTag||someTimeTagWithoutDatetime||lastModifiedTime);var date=jsDate2bibTex(pageTime);var year=date2YearTex(pageTime);var title_key=title.replace(/[^0-9a-z]/gi,"");var citationKey=title_key+"-"+date;var type="@Online";var filename=":./references/"+window.location.pathname.slice(1).replace(/\//g,"-")+".html:html";var title_tex=title.replace(/\u00e4/g,'\\"a').replace(/\u00c4/g,'\\"A').replace(/\u00f6/g,'\\"o').replace(/\u00d6/g,'\\"O').replace(/\u00fc/g,'\\"u').replace(/\u00dc/g,'\\"U').replace(/\u00DF/g,'\\"s');var bibTexEntry=type+" {"+citationKey+",\r  title = {"+title_tex+"},\r  date = {"+date+"},\r  year = {"+year+"},\r"+(author?"  author = {"+author+"},\r":"")+"  file = {"+filename+"},\r  url = {"+url+"},\r  urldate = {"+urldate+"}\r}";copyToClipboard(bibTexEntry)})();
   

4. Load the page you want to cite.

5. Click on the new bookmark button.

6. Copy the selected text to clipboard and press [ENTER].

7. Paste the BibLaTeX entry into

• your .bib file.
• JabRef: Just paste it into the open bibliography table.
• Zotero: Go to 'file' -> 'import from clipboard'.

Sample output:

@Online {UsingBibTeXashortguide-2015-11-02,
 title = {Using BibTeX: a short guide},
 date = {2015-11-02},
 author = {Martin J. Osborne},
 file = {:./references/osborne-latex-BIBTEX.HTM.html:html},
 url = {https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/osborne/latex/BIBTEX.HTM},
 urldate = {2018-03-17}
}

---

PS.: I hosted this on GitHub: https://github.com/dmstern/html2biblatex. Feel free to fork, star, contribute! :)

---

Update 2018: I optimized the code a bit. Could you guys please test it and report issues to https://github.com/dmstern/html2biblatex/issues? Thank you! :)

Answer 3

This chrome extension I wrote sometime ago tries to address this. It creates a BibTeX entry from the active URL and copies it to clipboard automatically.There are three options to create a BibTeX entry from the active URL:

• either press the extension button in the browser
• right-click in the webpage and copy the bibtex to clipboard
• assign a keyboard shortcut to the extension from Chrome menu to automatically copy the BibTeX entry of the active URL.

Example:

For http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/packaging.html we get:

@misc{Packa3:Online,
author = {},
title = {Packaging - Google Chrome},
howpublished = {\url{https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/packaging}},
month = {},
year = {},
note = {(Accessed on 06/07/2014)}
}

Answer 4

This site allows you to create a citation from a URL and then export it as a bibtex reference:

https://www.citethisforme.com/apa

Answer 5

Also, https://www.refme.com/ allows you to generate a list of references online from urls and export it to a BibTex file when you are done.

Answer 6

(Moved here from duplicate)

One can use a browser extension:

Some for Firefox

CurrentPageToBibTeX

• parses HTML meta tags
• doesn't always work
• fast setup

Cite This!

• couldn't get it to work, but has many users

BibItNow!

• lots of options
• seems to work well
• urldate, @online have to be enabled
• best for Firefox, in my opinion

A few for Chrome

BibTeX entry from URL

• copies to clipboard
• not many, but useful options (e.g. for date format and @online)
• works best, in my opinion (in 2021)

BibItNow!

• Specs: same as Firefox
• I did not test it

In the end, the entries will most likely need manual editing. E.g. author or publication date are reliably captured only when tagged in HTML.

Answer 7

I've created the simple URL to BibTeX webapp which generates basic BibTeX entry based on URL:

The source code is available here.

Answer 8

getbibtex can easily do the job. But it is not as detailed as bibme does. However the information is inconsistent from bibme.org. you might manually edit/correct some.