7 Best Free Reference Generator Software For Windows

Here is a list of Best Free Reference Generator Software For Windows. It is equally important for researchers to organize their references as well as generate citations for them in the correct format. A citation is a quotation of a reference used in a scholarly work. Using these citation generators, you can easily cite references or your own research work in different reference formats or citation styles. These citation formats include IEEE, APA, ACS, Harvard, American Medical Association, American Sociological Association, MLA, Chicago Citation style, and many more.

To generate citations, you first need to add/import references to respective reference generator. You can add references of various types like Book, Case, Journal Article, Web Page, Magazine Article, Newspaper Article, etc. To know how to organize reference library, check this article > Reference Management Software. After you add references, you can either copy the citation in chosen citation style or export it in different formats like HTML, RTF, etc. Some of these can also be integrated with a word processor to add cited text directly into the document.

The good part of these citation maker software is that most of these support multiple languages to generate citations, like English, French, German, Polish, Chinese, Arabic, etc.

My Favorite Reference Generator Software For Windows

Citavi is my favorite citation generator software as it provides a wide list of citation formats to cite your references. It is a complete reference manager, so you can organize and manage your research material with ease.

You may also like best free Script Writing, Novel Writing, and Writing Assistant software for Windows.

Citavi

Citavi is a free reference management software for Windows. Using it, you can organize your research material at one place. This one can also be used to generate citations for your references. Using it, you can cite your references based on your research area. Let’s see how.

Citavi as Citation Generator Software:

As you create projects with various references, the references will be accessible from main interface. Click on any of the references and the citation (in default style) for the same will be viewed in a left panel. Now, to change the citation style, it provides a wide range of formats. Go to Citation menu > Citation style and click on Browse citation styles option. A new window will open up, select find and add style option from here. Now, you can find a citation style based on different criteria including Citation System (in-text citation, footnote, etc.), Language (English, Chinese, Italian, French, German, etc.), Subject Area (Economics, Earth Sciences, Applied Sciences and Engineering, Theology, etc.), and Name. As you mention these criteria, it fetches available citation styles. You can choose one from the list as per your requirement and it previews the reference in that format. It also displays information on selected citation style including distinctive feature. Finally, to add a style, click Add button. The formatted citation can be copied to add to your own research work.

Citavi is just not a feature rich reference management software, but also a citation maker software. In my opinion, it is a must-have software for researchers to organize references and generate citations for the same. To know more about it, check here.

Note: In its free version, you can save up to 100 references.

Mendeley Desktop

Mendeley Desktop is quite a familiar reference and bibliography management software among scholars. Apart from storing references and managing them, you can also generate citations for your references using it. It provides few citation styles which include popular ones like IEEE, American Medical Association, American Sociological Association, Harvard reference format, etc. You can get more reference formats from its library which you can access by using View > Citation Styles > More Styles option. Just enter the name of citation style or enter its download link to install a new citation format. You can select the desired language too, such as English, French, German, Italian, Korean, Polish, Arabic, etc. It also shows abbreviations used for journals.

After selecting the citation style, right-click a reference from your library and click on Copy As > Formatted Citation to copy the cited text.

Mendeley Desktop is a complete reference manager with advanced features like Literature Search, Add Watch Folders, Add Groups (to collaborate with colleagues), Cloud Synchronization, etc.

Note: You need to create an account on its official website to access the software.

Zotero

Zotero is a free, open source reference generator software for Windows. It is another software which you can use to organize references and also to generate citations.

First, you have to add references with Title, Artist, Publisher, Place, Year, Language, ISBN, Tags, etc. details. After that, right click the added reference and click on “Create Bibliography from item” option. You will be then asked to choose a citation style, language, output mode (Citations or Bibliography), and output method (RTF, HTML, Print, or Copy to clipboard). Setup the options accordingly to fetch respective citation. You can copy the citation for any reference from Edit menu after setting up these options.

Zotero is another software for researchers to organize a library of their research material. It has various desirable features which can checkout here.

Refeus

Refeus is yet another reference generator for Windows. It provides different tabs to organize your references and copy respective citation. The four tabs are: Collect (import references), Write (create and annotate documents), Manage (organize knowledge database), and Export (export documents). In order to generate citations, go to Manage tab > Publications section. Corresponding to publications, it displays the citation below the window. You can copy the citation using the option highlighted in above screenshot.

To change the citation style, click on Settings option and then click on Change Citation Style. From here, you can search for styles by entering Citation Format, Citation Category, and Citation Language. Select the required citation format from fetched ones and save it.

Note: It displays application interface in German language when you first launch it. Simply click on Settings button present below its interface to change the language to English.

BiblioExpress

BiblioExpress is a free, portable reference generator software for Windows. It lets you add references with details like type (Artwork, Bill, Book, Computer Program, Article, patent, etc.), authors, title, URL, keywords, place, abstract, etc. After that, you can copy citations for them in APA, MLA, and/or ACS styles using Copy Formatted button from the toolbar. That’s it.

As it is a portable citation generator, you can use it on the go.

Dr Essay Reference Generator

Dr Essay Reference Generator, as the name implies, is a dedicated reference generator software for Windows. As a free user of this software, you are restricted to 50 use per day. See here to compare its free and paid versions.

Using this citation maker, you can easily generate references in three simple steps:

1. Enter the keywords for the topic you are generating references. Also, specify reference count as low, medium, or max. Its free version shows only 4-5 top results to the related keyword.
2. Next, it provides few results related to the keyword. It offers three reference style to choose from, namely, APA, MLA, and Harvard. Select the desired one and choose a specific result to generate its reference.
3. Click on Next Step button and view generated reference in selected citation format. You can copy the reference from here.

Dr Essay Reference Generator is an easy to use and basic citation maker software.

Reference Generator

Reference Generator is a free reference generator app for Windows 10. It lets you cite your references or your own research work in different formats like Harvard, Numeric (Vancouver), MHRA, APA, IEEE, Chicago, and Royal Society of Chemistry.

It lets you add likewise references to individual projects. You can add references of three types: Book, Journal, and Website. For each of these, you need to add respective details including Title, Authors, Publishers, Pages, Year, Volume Number, URL, etc. You copy the citation to the clipboard and also share it via Mail, OneNote, etc. In-Text Example with direct quote and in-text reference is also provided.

Limitation of free version: Only one project can be created with up to only 10 references.