Skip to content
TextArray1.41.0
100% local

Citation and bibliography checker

Compare the citations used in your text against your reference list and spot what does not line up.

Input
Bibliography
Output
Related tools
Citation generatornewRandom generators
BibTeX to citationsnewText formatting
Compare listsLists & combinations
Subtitle overlap fixerText manipulation
Truncate at wordText manipulation
Sort wordsText manipulation
Citation and bibliography checker
Paste a manuscript on one side and your reference list on the other, and this tool shows where the two disagree. It flags citations used in the text with no matching bibliography entry, and — just as often overlooked — entries the text never actually cites. Students proofreading a thesis, writers finishing a report and editors checking a submission all hit the same problem: a source added to the list but never cited, or cited but never added, and it is tedious to catch by eye once a document runs past a few pages.
Pick the citation style: author and year, like "(Novak, 2020)" or "Novak (2020)"; numbered references in square brackets, like "[12]", including comma lists and ranges such as "[1-3]"; or Markdown-style footnote markers, "[^1]". "Ignore diacritics and name abbreviations" makes author-year matching forgiving of "Novák" versus "Novak" or a missing initial. "Warn about year mismatches" separates a genuine editing slip — right author, wrong year — from a source that is truly missing. "Count citation occurrences" tallies how often each citation appears, and "Warn about duplicate list entries" catches a reference pasted into the list twice.
Matching works on the first author's surname, so multi-author and "et al." citations still resolve correctly, and it expects a reasonably standard list format: one entry per line, surname first, with a four-digit year somewhere in it. Findings can be sorted by their order in the text or by citation key, whichever is easier to scan, and very long documents are handled the same way as short ones.
Everything runs locally in your browser — your manuscript and bibliography are never uploaded. Copy the findings, download them as a .txt file, or send the output back into the input to re-check after fixing the list.
FAQ
Which citation styles does it support?
Author-year citations like "(Novak, 2020)" or "Novak (2020)", numbered references in square brackets like "[12]" (including "[1, 2]" and "[1-3]"), and Markdown-style footnote markers like "[^1]".
How does it decide two citations refer to the same source?
By the first author's surname plus the year. Multi-author citations and "et al." forms are matched on that first surname, and with diacritic-insensitive matching turned on, accented and unaccented spellings are treated as the same author.
What counts as one entry in the bibliography?
Each non-empty line. For numbered or footnote styles, an entry’s position in the list (1st, 2nd, ...) is what a citation number or footnote marker points to.
What happens if a citation and its bibliography entry have different years?
With "Warn about year mismatches" on, it is reported separately from a missing citation, since the source exists but the year is likely a typo. Turn the option off to treat any year difference as a missing citation instead.
Is my manuscript or reference list uploaded anywhere?
No. The comparison runs entirely in your browser — nothing you paste is sent to a server.