RIS file format: tags, type codes and what "Export RIS" means

Last reviewed on October 3, 2026

RIS is a tag-based bibliographic format that long pre-dates the web. A .ris file is a sequence of records, each made up of two-letter tags followed by their values. Almost every reference manager and most major bibliographic databases — PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science — can read and write it. For users who already work in EndNote, Mendeley, or Zotero, importing RIS is usually a single menu click.

What does "Export RIS" mean?

When a database, journal site or library catalogue offers Export RIS (sometimes "Download citation, RIS" or "Export to EndNote/Zotero/Mendeley"), it means: download the bibliographic record of this item as a small .ris text file. RIS stands for Research Information Systems, the company that created the format for its Reference Manager software. The file contains only the citation data (authors, title, journal, year, DOI and so on), not the article itself. You then open or import that file in a reference manager, which turns it into a library entry you can cite.

Because RIS is plain text, you can also open it in any text editor to check or fix a field before importing. The extractor on the home page can now produce a .ris file from a PDF, too.

Anatomy of a record

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Smith, Jane
AU  - Doe, John
TI  - Something about pdf extraction
JO  - Journal of Document Engineering
PY  - 2023
VL  - 12
IS  - 3
SP  - 101
EP  - 120
DO  - 10.1234/jde.2023.0012
ER  -

Each record begins with TY (the type) and ends with ER. The two characters of each tag are followed by exactly two spaces, a hyphen, a space, and then the value. Authors are repeated with one AU per author. Long values can wrap onto continuation lines.

Common tags

Tag	Meaning
`TY`	Reference type (JOUR, BOOK, CHAP, CONF, RPRT, THES, GEN, …)
`TI` or `T1`	Primary title
`AU`	Author (one per line)
`ED`	Editor
`JO` / `JF` / `T2`	Journal or container title
`PY` / `Y1`	Publication year
`DA`	Date (YYYY/MM/DD)
`VL`	Volume
`IS`	Issue
`SP`	Start page
`EP`	End page
`DO`	DOI
`UR`	URL
`AB` / `N2`	Abstract
`KW`	Keyword (one per line)
`PB`	Publisher
`SN`	ISBN or ISSN
`LA`	Language
`J2`	Alternate title, usually the abbreviated journal name (why PubMed exports show abbreviated titles)
`A2`	Secondary author (often editor of the book or series)
`T3`	Tertiary title (for example series title)
`CY`	Place of publication (city)
`ET`	Edition
`M1`	Miscellaneous 1: meaning depends on type (for example article number, or patent number in some exporters)
`M3`	Type of work (for example "Doctoral thesis", "Patent")
`ST`	Short title
`Y2`	Access date (date you consulted an online item)
`N1`	Notes
`AN`	Accession number in the source database
`DB` / `DP`	Name of database / database provider
`L1`	Link to an attached PDF file
`ID`	Reference ID within the file
`ER`	End of record (mandatory)

Type codes

The TY value tells the importer what kind of work this is. Common ones:

JOUR — journal article.
CONF / CPAPER — conference paper.
BOOK — whole book.
CHAP — book chapter.
RPRT — report.
THES — thesis.
UNPB — unpublished work.
ELEC — electronic resource.
GEN — generic catch-all.

Reference managers often translate these into their own internal type names on import; round-tripping a record through two different managers can change its type slightly.

Compatibility quirks

Different vendors use slightly different tags for the same field (JO, JF, and T2 all appear for journal title in the wild). A safe writer outputs the most widely supported tag for each field; a safe reader accepts all the synonyms.
Some importers require the file to use Windows-style CRLF line endings. Most modern importers no longer mind, but a few legacy ones still do.
Author names should be in Family, Given order, with a comma. If a record uses Given Family instead, the importer may guess wrong about which part is the family name.
The ER line is mandatory. Records without it are silently dropped by some importers.

Importing a RIS file

Zotero: File → Import…, choose the .ris file (or simply open it while Zotero is running).
Mendeley Reference Manager: File → Import → RIS, or drag the file into the library window.
EndNote: File → Import → File, then choose the "Reference Manager (RIS)" import option.
JabRef: File → Import into current library, format "RIS".

If authors arrive in the wrong order, the source probably wrote Given Family instead of Family, Given. If the journal name appears abbreviated, the exporter filled J2 or JO with the abbreviation; most managers let you switch which journal field is used in citations.

When to choose RIS

RIS is the smoothest option when the destination is EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero in default settings, or a publisher's submission portal that asks for "RIS or EndNote XML". For LaTeX-based workflows, BibTeX is more idiomatic; for tools built around the Citation Style Language, CSL-JSON keeps more structure intact. Most reference managers can convert between them on import.