Reference manager
Also called: citation manager, bibliographic software
Software that stores your sources, attaches PDFs, and inserts formatted citations into a document as you write.
Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, and Paperpile are libraries first and formatters second. They collect references from your browser, keep the PDFs, sync across machines, and plug into a word processor so citations and the reference list update together when you add or reorder a source.
A citation generator solves a different problem: one source, right now, no installation. The two are complements — a generator for an assignment, a manager for a thesis. The bridge between them is BibTeX or RIS export.
Do it on CitationEasy
See also
BibTeXThe reference format used with LaTeX, storing each source as a typed record of field–value pairs in a .bib file.RISA plain-text reference interchange format using two-letter tags, exported by most databases and read by most reference managers.CSL (Citation Style Language)An open XML format for describing how a citation style formats references, used by Zotero, Mendeley, Paperpile, and this site.