The following tools can help you assemble a citation from limited information, with limited effort. These are tools with a variety of interfaces that provide a complete formatted reference based on a few initial details.
Citoid: A tool built into both
Visual Editor and source editor that attempts to build a full citation based on a URL. See
user guide.
Diberri Template builder: Converts URL, DrugBank ID, HGNC ID, PubMed ID, PubMed Central ID or PubChem ID to full citation.
MakeRef: A form for creating various {{
cite xxx}} templates.
OABOT, a tool that finds open-access links for citations
reFill: Uses Citoid to replace all bare URLs on a Wikipedia page with filled {{cite web}} templates.
RefScript: A bookmarklet that generates references with a single click. Works with a few news websites (BBC, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Huffington Post, Huffington Post Canada, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Times of India, Financial Times, The Economist, Business Week, Ars Technica, TG Daily) and it can learn any other newspaper or website.
Web2Cit: An automatic citation generator for web sources, meant to complement citation results by Citoid for which no valid translators exist. Web2Cit translators are community controlled. It runs
its own server on toolforge.
WebRef: A bookmarklet automating the filling of the {{cite web}} template.
Citation Bot (
more info) – Partial citations must either contain a DOI, PMID, PMC, ISBN,
S2CID or enough fields to be uniquely found; the bot will also fix formatting errors
Find sources – provides links to customized searches for reliable sources in news newspapers books scholar JSTOR free images and the like. Points to a variety of templates for use in talk pages, on the
AfD page etc., and for a variety of types of articles and situations.
refToolbar (
JavaScript) – Allows you to format a reference during editing when you already have all the data
Scopus search add-on – Find a reference on
Scopus, then with one click it's formatted ready for use in an article
SnipManager (
JavaScript) – Adds a Ribbon menu above the edit form with templates (including citations) and the ability to preview citations
toollabs:refill – Checks an article for working (non-404) references, corrects titles, adds citation templates, and performs other miscellaneous fixes
User:CitationTool – Semi-bot for finding citation errors and fixing them
Zotero (cross-platform) – Allows you to find articles and easily paste their citations into Wikipedia as citation templates, using (on Windows) Ctrl-Alt-C or right-clicking the article and selecting "Export Selected Item..." then "Wikipedia Citation Templates"; see
Wikipedia:Citing sources with Zotero
Citation tools
Reference markup and citation templates may be inserted manually or by use of tools:
Citation expander automatically adds missing data to citations using citation templates, and makes corrections to their formatting
ProveIt provides a graphical interface for editing, adding, and citing references. It may be enabled per the documentation
Reference Organizer presents all references in graphical user interface, where you can choose whether the references should be defined in the body of article or in the reference list template(s) (
list-defined format). You can also sort the references in various ways (and optionally keep the sort order), and rename the references.
RefTooltip sets the tooltip for references to the text of the reference.
ReviewSourceCheck (different versions for different preferences) flags 16 types of errors in the references and/or notes, when using Harv templates.
Sources Formats names of newspapers within citation templates
User:BrandonXLF/Autoref replaces the reference button in the editing toolbar in the 2010 wikitext editor with a button that allows the use of Citoid to insert an auto generated reference
User:BrandonXLF/Citoid generates a reference using the Citoid server. Designed for being used inside user scripts.
user:js/ajaxPreview adds a preview button that will show references when editing a section
User:Salix alba/Citoid Generates citation templates using the Citoid server. Standalone javascript which can be used outside of Visual Editor.
The following tools can help you assemble a citation from limited information, with limited effort. These are tools with a variety of interfaces that provide a complete formatted reference based on a few initial details.
Citoid: A tool built into both
Visual Editor and source editor that attempts to build a full citation based on a URL. See
user guide.
Diberri Template builder: Converts URL, DrugBank ID, HGNC ID, PubMed ID, PubMed Central ID or PubChem ID to full citation.
MakeRef: A form for creating various {{
cite xxx}} templates.
OABOT, a tool that finds open-access links for citations
reFill: Uses Citoid to replace all bare URLs on a Wikipedia page with filled {{cite web}} templates.
RefScript: A bookmarklet that generates references with a single click. Works with a few news websites (BBC, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Huffington Post, Huffington Post Canada, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Times of India, Financial Times, The Economist, Business Week, Ars Technica, TG Daily) and it can learn any other newspaper or website.
Web2Cit: An automatic citation generator for web sources, meant to complement citation results by Citoid for which no valid translators exist. Web2Cit translators are community controlled. It runs
its own server on toolforge.
WebRef: A bookmarklet automating the filling of the {{cite web}} template.
Citation Bot (
more info) – Partial citations must either contain a DOI, PMID, PMC, ISBN,
S2CID or enough fields to be uniquely found; the bot will also fix formatting errors
Find sources – provides links to customized searches for reliable sources in news newspapers books scholar JSTOR free images and the like. Points to a variety of templates for use in talk pages, on the
AfD page etc., and for a variety of types of articles and situations.
refToolbar (
JavaScript) – Allows you to format a reference during editing when you already have all the data
Scopus search add-on – Find a reference on
Scopus, then with one click it's formatted ready for use in an article
SnipManager (
JavaScript) – Adds a Ribbon menu above the edit form with templates (including citations) and the ability to preview citations
toollabs:refill – Checks an article for working (non-404) references, corrects titles, adds citation templates, and performs other miscellaneous fixes
User:CitationTool – Semi-bot for finding citation errors and fixing them
Zotero (cross-platform) – Allows you to find articles and easily paste their citations into Wikipedia as citation templates, using (on Windows) Ctrl-Alt-C or right-clicking the article and selecting "Export Selected Item..." then "Wikipedia Citation Templates"; see
Wikipedia:Citing sources with Zotero
Citation tools
Reference markup and citation templates may be inserted manually or by use of tools:
Citation expander automatically adds missing data to citations using citation templates, and makes corrections to their formatting
ProveIt provides a graphical interface for editing, adding, and citing references. It may be enabled per the documentation
Reference Organizer presents all references in graphical user interface, where you can choose whether the references should be defined in the body of article or in the reference list template(s) (
list-defined format). You can also sort the references in various ways (and optionally keep the sort order), and rename the references.
RefTooltip sets the tooltip for references to the text of the reference.
ReviewSourceCheck (different versions for different preferences) flags 16 types of errors in the references and/or notes, when using Harv templates.
Sources Formats names of newspapers within citation templates
User:BrandonXLF/Autoref replaces the reference button in the editing toolbar in the 2010 wikitext editor with a button that allows the use of Citoid to insert an auto generated reference
User:BrandonXLF/Citoid generates a reference using the Citoid server. Designed for being used inside user scripts.
user:js/ajaxPreview adds a preview button that will show references when editing a section
User:Salix alba/Citoid Generates citation templates using the Citoid server. Standalone javascript which can be used outside of Visual Editor.