Free three-month pilot from Microsoft Marketplace launch. Full reference features. No card required.
Now supporting 54 journal profiles

Format references the way the journal actually wants.

Paste any messy reference list — RefRight parses it, applies the right style for APA, MLA, Vancouver, IEEE, AMA, Chicago, Harvard, or any of 54 journal-specific profiles, verifies every DOI against CrossRef, and flags retracted papers before you submit.

Start free — no card required See it in action
Free full-feature pilot Available as a Microsoft Word add-in No payment required
refright.app/refright/workspace ✓ 4 refs formatted
Your input
Smith J 2020 Title of paper Nature 580 100-105 Brown R, Lee S Comparative review of citation styles. Cell. 178:720-735, 2019 Wei X et al. (2018). Disputed Findings. The Lancet 391, 105-110. Anonymous. Untitled. Unknown publisher.
Vancouver style · journal: Nature

1. Smith J. Title of paper. Nature. 2020;580:100–5.

2. Brown R, Lee S. Comparative review of citation styles. Cell. 2019;178:720–35.

3. Wei X, et al. Disputed findings. The Lancet. 2018;391:105–10. Retracted

4. Incomplete — missing journal & year.

Built on standards trusted by

What it does

Everything you need before submitting a manuscript.

Three core capabilities, designed for researchers, postdocs, medical writers, and editing professionals.

A

Format any style

8 base styles (APA, MLA, Vancouver, Chicago, IEEE, AMA, Harvard) plus 54 journal-specific profiles — Nature, Cell, NEJM, Lancet, JAMA, IEEE Trans, and more. Switch between styles in one click.

See all styles →
✓

Verify & enrich

Auto-fill DOIs from CrossRef, flag missing fields with one-click fixes, and check every reference against the Retraction Watch database before you submit.

How it works →
W

Word add-in

Use the sideloaded Word add-in. Find your bibliography automatically, format inline, see a side-by-side diff with the journal's style, and accept or reject changes per reference.

Get the add-in →
Journal compliance

Match the exact style your target journal demands.

Each journal has its own quirks: italicized titles in Nature, full first names in JAMA, square-bracketed citations in IEEE. RefRight encodes 54 of them as profiles you can apply in one click.

  • Side-by-side Diff view shows what would change before you accept.
  • Accept per ref or accept all — full control over the rewrite.
  • Profiles built from real CSL files, not approximations.
  • Custom journal profiles for any in-house style guide.
Try with your manuscript
Smith, J. (2020). Title of paper. Nature, 580(7803), 100–105.
Your input · APA 7
Smith J. Title of paper. Nature. 2020;580:100–5.
Nature style · Vancouver-based
Word Insert Layout RefRight
Workspace Connected
Microsoft Word add-in

Stay in Word. We come to you.

Sideload the RefRight manifest into a supported Word host and open it as a task pane. Microsoft AppSource publication is pending. Your bibliography is auto-detected, your output replaces the original in place.

  • Available for manifest sideloading; AppSource listing pending.
  • Auto-detect the References section in your manuscript.
  • Format, insert, append, or replace — your choice.
  • Bold and italic preserved in both directions.
Get the add-in Sideload manifest
Inputs & outputs

Reads anything. Writes whatever your workflow needs.

Paste, drop, upload, or look up by identifier. Export to text, document, structured XML, or LaTeX-ready BibTeX.

Inputs → parse
TXT Free-form text Paste any messy reference list
.bib BibTeX From LaTeX, Zotero, Mendeley
.ris RIS EndNote, ProCite, RefWorks
.enw EndNote tagged Direct EndNote export
.docx Word document Auto-extract bibliography
.pdf PDF Scan & pull references
.csv CSV Spreadsheet rows of refs
DOI DOI lookup Single ID → full record
PMID PubMed ID Direct from PubMed
arXiv arXiv ID Preprint identifier
ISBN ISBN Book identifier
W Word selection Highlighted text in Word
Outputs format →
TXTPlain textCopy-paste anywhere
HTMLStyled HTMLItalics & bold preserved
.docxWord documentDrop into your manuscript
.pdfPDFPrint-ready bibliography
JATSJATS XMLPublishing standard
BITSBITS XMLBook-Interchange Tag Suite
.bibBibTeXLaTeX-ready
.risRISFor EndNote / ProCite
CSLCSL-JSONCitation Style Language
JSONStructured JSONFor programmatic use
.csvCSVExcel / Sheets rows
XMLGeneric XMLCustom integrations

Need an integration we don't list? Use the REST API  ·  request a format

Same input, every output

One reference. Any style. Any format.

Paste a raw citation. RefRight expands abbreviated journals, applies the right title casing, preserves proper nouns and acronyms, and emits whatever output your workflow needs.

Raw input — full names · abbreviated journal · acronyms · eponyms
John A Smith, Karen B Jones. mRNA vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: the Alzheimer's comorbidity challenge. N Engl J Med. 2022;387(14):1302–1315. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2209521
Full names → initials (APA / Vancouver) mRNA · COVID-19 · Saharan · Alzheimer's preserved N Engl J Med ↔ New England Journal of Medicine NLM abbreviation kept for Vancouver / AMA Sentence-case (APA) vs Title-Case (MLA / Chicago)
↓
Authors → initials · Sentence-case · Proper nouns preserved · Journal expanded
Smith, J. A., & Jones, K. B. (2022). mRNA vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: The Alzheimer's comorbidity challenge. New England Journal of Medicine, 387(14), 1302–1315. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2209521
Full names · Title-Case · Journal expanded · Volume / issue spelled out
Smith, John A., and Karen B. Jones. "mRNA Vaccine Efficacy Against COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Alzheimer's Comorbidity Challenge." New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 387, no. 14, 2022, pp. 1302–1315, https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2209521.
Full names · Title-Case · Journal expanded · Author-date variant
Smith, John A., and Karen B. Jones. "mRNA Vaccine Efficacy against COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Alzheimer's Comorbidity Challenge." New England Journal of Medicine 387, no. 14 (2022): 1302–1315. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2209521.
Initials · Sentence-case · Journal expanded · Single-quote title
Smith, J.A. and Jones, K.B. (2022) 'mRNA vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: the Alzheimer's comorbidity challenge', New England Journal of Medicine, 387(14), pp. 1302–1315. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2209521.
Initials first · Sentence-case · NLM abbreviation kept · Numbered
J. A. Smith and K. B. Jones, "mRNA vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: the Alzheimer's comorbidity challenge," N Engl J Med, vol. 387, no. 14, pp. 1302–1315, 2022, doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2209521.
Initials · NLM abbreviation · Numbered · Compressed format
1. Smith JA, Jones KB. mRNA vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: the Alzheimer's comorbidity challenge. N Engl J Med. 2022;387(14):1302–1315. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2209521.
Initials · NLM abbreviation · Numbered · Used by JAMA, NEJM, BMJ
1. Smith JA, Jones KB. mRNA vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: the Alzheimer's comorbidity challenge. N Engl J Med. 2022;387(14):1302-1315. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2209521
JATS XML — structured for journal publishing systems
<ref id="ref1">
  <mixed-citation publication-type="journal">
    <person-group person-group-type="author">
      <name><surname>Smith</surname><given-names>JA</given-names></name>
      <name><surname>Jones</surname><given-names>KB</given-names></name>
    </person-group>
    <article-title>mRNA vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 ...</article-title>
    <source>N Engl J Med</source>
    <year>2022</year>
    <volume>387</volume><issue>14</issue>
    <fpage>1302</fpage><lpage>1315</lpage>
    <pub-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1056/NEJMoa2209521</pub-id>
  </mixed-citation>
</ref>
BibTeX — drop into your LaTeX \bibliography{}
@article{smith2022mrna,
  author  = {Smith, John A and Jones, Karen B},
  title   = {{mRNA} vaccine efficacy against {COVID-19}
             in sub-{Saharan} {Africa}: the {Alzheimer's}
             comorbidity challenge},
  journal = {N Engl J Med},
  year    = {2022},
  volume  = {387},
  number  = {14},
  pages   = {1302--1315},
  doi     = {10.1056/NEJMoa2209521}
}
Word / PDF — hanging indent · italic journal · submission-ready
Smith, J. A., & Jones, K. B. (2022). mRNA vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: The Alzheimer's comorbidity challenge. New England Journal of Medicine, 387(14), 1302–1315. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2209521

Output as .docx with proper hanging indent, italic journal title, and clean Unicode dashes — ready to drop into the bibliography section of your manuscript.

Plus 54 journal-specific profiles. See all available styles →

54journal profiles
8base citation styles
100M+DOIs verifiable via CrossRef
< 3savg. parse time per ref

Full features. Free three-month pilot.

Try all citation styles, journal profiles, DOI checks, reference exports, library and Word tools. No payment card required. The pilot runs for three calendar months from our Microsoft Marketplace launch.

Marketplace publication is pending. Early access is free while we prepare the listing.

Up to 100 references per request. Security and request-rate limits apply.

Join the free pilot Pilot details
Common questions

Quick answers.

How is RefRight different from Zotero or Mendeley?
Zotero and Mendeley are great reference managers — they store and organize papers. RefRight does what they don't: take a finished bibliography and convert it to the exact style any specific journal demands, with verification against retraction databases. Use them together: Zotero to manage, RefRight to format for submission.
Is the Word add-in free?
The add-in is available for manifest sideloading; Microsoft AppSource publication is pending. All currently implemented reference features are included during the free pilot; no paid subscription is required.
Are paid plans available?
Paid plans are not yet available. Purchase and cancellation details will be provided when billing launches.
Do you support custom in-house styles?
Yes — pilot users can create custom journal profiles in the Style Manager. Define citation rules, in-text format, abbreviation lists, and field order.
See all questions →

Stop reformatting at midnight.

Paste your bibliography. Pick a journal. RefRight handles the rest.

Start free — no card required

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