Import data from any program via RIS or BibTeX files

By Suzanne O’Regan · Updated Jun 27, 2025

If your reference manager supports exporting to either BibTeX or RIS format, you can import your existing library into Paperpile.

In Paperpile, go to the top left corner and click Add > Upload files to open the file upload dialog

The Add menu open with a red arrow pointing to “Upload files… — Import PDFs, BibTeX, RIS, EndNote…”, above Create new, Search online, Paste, Import from other programs and Create shared library.

Click Choose files or drag and drop your .bib or .ris files directly in the upload dialog.

The Upload files dialog with “Choose files…” and “Choose folder…” buttons in a drop zone, an “Upload to: My Library” selector, a “Skip duplicates” toggle switched on, and Cancel and “Start upload” buttons.

Tip: You can skip the above steps by simply dragging and dropping files from your computer to the Paperpile window — the file upload dialog will show up automatically. Note: If you cannot export your library to a standard format, Paperpile may be able to extract metadata from your PDFs — see Import unorganized PDFs from your computer

Supported file types

Paperpile can import references from the following file types:

BibTeX (.bib or .bibtex)
RIS (.ris)
PDF (.pdf)
EndNote files (.enw, .xml, .eni or full data folder)
Zotero (.sqlite or full data folder)
Citavi (.ctv6)
MARC (.mrc or .xml)
Web Of Science (.ciw)
RefWorks (.xml)
PubMed (.nbib)

If you try to import a file with a file type not supported by Paperpile, it will not be included in the upload. A warning will be shown whenever an unsupported file is encountered.

If you are trying to upload a BibTeX or RIS file that does not have a file extension, rename the file with an appropriate extension so it can be recognized (e.g. rename "MyLibrary" to "MyLibrary.ris" or “MyLibrary.bib”).

Note: Although Paperpile can only parse certain file types for reference data, you can attach any type of file to a reference in your library. Click the paperclip icon below a reference to show the files panel and the option to Attach file.

A reference with its files panel open, an “Attached files — Click to hide” tooltip on the paperclip, the main PDF listed with Drive, edit, download and delete icons, and “Attach file” and “Browse for files…” buttons.

Choose a destination for your imported references

By default, all new references will be added to the currently selected library. Before starting the import, you can choose a destination. This can be a folder, label, shared library, or shared folder.

To facilitate locating your imported reference later on, Paperpile suggests a folder name based on the bibliographic file's filename. If you import a folder, it uses the folder's name. If you import a library file from another reference manager software, it will create a label named "Import" followed by today's date.

The “Upload to” selector set to My Library › Manuscript, with the folder tree open showing Journal club (Week 1, Week 2, Week 3), Manuscript, mRNA, NSF Grant Proposal (Background) and PubMed.

Handling duplicates

If the option Skip duplicates is turned on, any references you try to upload that already exist will be skipped and not imported. This option is on by default.

The Upload files dialog with “Manuscript-refs.bib · 24.5 KB” queued, an “Upload to” selector set to a Manuscript-refs folder, and the “Skip duplicates” toggle circled in the on position.

Turn off Skip duplicates, to import all references regardless of detected duplicates. You can use the Duplicates filter in the filter menu to clean up later if needed.

If the file you try to upload already contains duplicate references only the first one in the file will be imported.

Uploading RIS and BibTeX Files with PDFs

You can upload PDFs along with your RIS or BibTeX files. Paperpile will extract metadata from your PDF files and automatically attach the PDF to the corresponding reference in your RIS or BibTeX files if it finds a match.

To ensure that PDFs or supplementary files are correctly attached to the intended reference, you can also directly link files in your RIS or BibTeX files.

For RIS files, insert a new line with the L1 tag followed by the relative path to the PDF file. To attach multiple files to a reference, add multiple L1 tags.

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Smith, John
TI  - Study on Reference Management
L1  - files/Ref_Man.pdf
L1  - files/Smith_Supplementary_Data.xls
ER  -

For BibTeX files, add the file field with the relative path to the PDF file. Separate multiple file names with a semicolon ;.

@article{smith2019,
  author = {Smith, John},
  title = {Study on Reference Management},
  journal = {Journal of Information},
  year = {2019},
  file = {files/Ref_Man.pdf;files/Smith_Supplementary_Data.xls}
}