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I have a large text file with around 1000 entries for bibliographical references. As a service to the community (and myself), I want to convert this file to bib format. Is there an automated way to do this? I don't mind doing a bit of manual fixup if the results are less than perfect.

I'm especially interested in conversions that use modern LLM systems like ChatGPT. These are evolving very rapidly, so results today might be quite different from those from even a few months ago.

Here is a sample of the file contents:

Ackland, Bryan, and Neil Weste, "Real Time Animation Playback on a Frame Store Display System," Computer Graphics (Proc. Siggraph '80), Vol. 14, No. 3, July 1980, pp. 182-188. [graphics, animation, systems]

Acton, F. S., Numerical Methods that Work, Harper and Row, New York, 1970. [numerical analysis]

Adams, J. Alan, "A Comparison of Methods for Cubic Spline Curve Fitting," Computer-Aided Design, Vol. 6, No. 1, Jan. 1974, pp. 1-9. [splines, curves and surfaces, CAD/CAM]

Agin, G. J., and T. 0. Binford, "Computer Descriptions of Curved Objects," IEEE Trans. Computers, Vol. C-25, No. 4, Apr. 1976, pp. 439-449. [curves and surfaces, design and modeling]

Agoston, M. K., Algebraic Topology, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, 1976. [topology]

Ahlberg, J. H., and E. N. Nilson, "Convergence Properties of the Spline Fit," SIAM J. Appl. Math., Vol. 11, 1963, pp. 95-104. [splines, approximation theory]

Ahlberg, J. H., E. N. Nilson, and J. L. Walsh, The Theory of Splines and their Applications, Academic Press, New York, 1967. [splines, approximation theory]

Aho, Alfred V., John E. Hopcroft, and Jeffrey D. Ullman, The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1974. [algorithms]

Ahuja, D. V., and S. A. Coons, "Geometry for Construction and Display," IBM Systems J., Vol. 7, No. 3/4, 1968, pp. 188-205. [splines, algorithms]

Aiken, Omer, Models of Architectural Knowledge: An Information Processing Model of Design, PhD thesis, Dept. of Architecture, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Penn., 1979. [design and modeling, applications]

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  • A key issue, which will likely require a lot of hand-editing on your part, is to decide which entry types to use for the entries in your 1000 element long list. Should a given entry be assigned the entry type @article, @book, @techreport, @inproceedings, etc.? And, which bibliography style will you be using? This question is relevant because while some bibliography styles handle only the 'basic' entry types and fields, others [along with biblatex] recognize many more entry types and fields. To automate the conversion to a bib file, it's important to know which fields may be used. Commented Aug 4 at 6:19
  • @Mico I am not too sure if this should be closed. As user asking fr text->bibtex style, although the linked question has some answers for text->bibtex. Please also note this is about the only thing AI's get close to getting right. I would say about 90% resulting in less hand-editing. They choke on a 1000 references and the prompt must be in chunks Commented Aug 4 at 6:38
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    @Mico The recent TUG conference has a talk about converters. Very interesting. Commented Aug 4 at 6:41
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    I've never tried, but maybe text2bib.org could help. Commented Aug 4 at 6:49
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    @Mico I don't think that this a duplicate. The other question asks a bbl to bib, but here we have free text. And as already pointed out, there just was a talk about text2bib, which is probably exactly what it needed here. Commented Aug 4 at 7:54

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There are some things that AI is actually quite good at, I wouldn't use this bib file without first manually checking it but a simple query gets 90% of the way there

https://chatgpt.com/share/6890d4b9-2eb4-800c-85b6-23a63460da06

Just asking

Please write the following bibliography entries as a bibtex .bib file

and pasting your data produced

@inproceedings{ackland1980real, author = {Bryan Ackland and Neil Weste}, title = {Real Time Animation Playback on a Frame Store Display System}, booktitle = {Computer Graphics (Proc. Siggraph '80)}, volume = {14}, number = {3}, year = {1980}, month = jul, pages = {182--188}, keywords = {graphics, animation, systems} } @book{acton1970numerical, author = {F. S. Acton}, title = {Numerical Methods that Work}, publisher = {Harper and Row}, address = {New York}, year = {1970}, keywords = {numerical analysis} } @article{adams1974comparison, author = {J. Alan Adams}, title = {A Comparison of Methods for Cubic Spline Curve Fitting}, journal = {Computer-Aided Design}, volume = {6}, number = {1}, year = {1974}, month = jan, pages = {1--9}, keywords = {splines, curves and surfaces, CAD/CAM} } @article{agin1976computer, author = {G. J. Agin and T. O. Binford}, title = {Computer Descriptions of Curved Objects}, journal = {IEEE Transactions on Computers}, volume = {C-25}, number = {4}, year = {1976}, month = apr, pages = {439--449}, keywords = {curves and surfaces, design and modeling} } @book{agoston1976algebraic, author = {M. K. Agoston}, title = {Algebraic Topology}, publisher = {Marcel Dekker, Inc.}, address = {New York}, year = {1976}, keywords = {topology} } @article{ahlberg1963convergence, author = {J. H. Ahlberg and E. N. Nilson}, title = {Convergence Properties of the Spline Fit}, journal = {SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics}, volume = {11}, year = {1963}, pages = {95--104}, keywords = {splines, approximation theory} } @book{ahlberg1967theory, author = {J. H. Ahlberg and E. N. Nilson and J. L. Walsh}, title = {The Theory of Splines and their Applications}, publisher = {Academic Press}, address = {New York}, year = {1967}, keywords = {splines, approximation theory} } @book{aho1974design, author = {Alfred V. Aho and John E. Hopcroft and Jeffrey D. Ullman}, title = {The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms}, publisher = {Addison-Wesley}, address = {Reading, Mass.}, year = {1974}, keywords = {algorithms} } @article{ahuja1968geometry, author = {D. V. Ahuja and S. A. Coons}, title = {Geometry for Construction and Display}, journal = {IBM Systems Journal}, volume = {7}, number = {3/4}, year = {1968}, pages = {188--205}, keywords = {splines, algorithms} } @phdthesis{aiken1979models, author = {Omer Aiken}, title = {Models of Architectural Knowledge: An Information Processing Model of Design}, school = {Carnegie-Mellon University}, address = {Pittsburgh, Penn.}, year = {1979}, type = {PhD thesis}, keywords = {design and modeling, applications} }
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  • Hmmm. I spent several hours coaxing ChatGPT into generating a bib file. I basically had to tell it how to write the code -- how to identify a book versus a paper, how to parse the fields, how to structure the code, advice about publisher and journal name lookup, etc. I did finally get something that worked fairly well, but it took a lot of effort. I wonder if David used ChatGPT after I had educated it ?? Commented Aug 5 at 5:40
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    @bubba I doubt it. I did use chatGPT months ago with similar results to David's on wikipedia cut-and-paste references, also from pdfs. My prompt convert the following references to BibLaTeX bibteX format. You need to know your bibTeX format well to fix the 10%, otherwise mayhem occurs. As David said is about the only thing they do well for LateX. Also for small scaffolding i.e. MWE about the same success. Commented Aug 5 at 6:08
  • @bubba As LaTeX does not have a linter, chatGPT is also good at fomat the following LaTeX code and ensure you don't change anything :) Commented Aug 5 at 6:10
  • See my comment about. ChatGPT can do a pretty good job if you know how to twist its arm. I will explain if the question is re-opened. Commented Aug 6 at 6:55
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    > You could add an LLM answer in the older question -- good idea. I will do that. Commented Aug 6 at 10:20

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