Free Citation Generator
Paste in your source's details, pick APA, MLA, or Chicago, and get a citation formatted to that style's exact rules. Missing fields get flagged, never invented.
- Free to use
- No sign-up required
- Built by the Typeahead team
Free from the team behind Typeahead. Autocomplete for the Mac apps you write in.
Get TypeaheadWhat is a citation generator?
A citation generator is a tool that formats source information, like a book, article, or website, into a properly structured citation for a style guide such as APA, MLA, or Chicago. You provide the source details, such as the title, authors, year, and publisher, and it returns a citation formatted to that style's exact punctuation, ordering, and capitalization rules.
Citation rules are exact and easy to miss.
APA, MLA, and Chicago each have their own rules for punctuation, capitalization, and source ordering, and the rules change between editions. Getting the format wrong doesn't change your argument, but it can still cost you points on a rubric or credibility with an editor.
- Where it matters
- Research papers and dissertations, blog posts citing sources, journalism, and any writing where you're crediting someone else's work.
- What the Citation Generator does
- Takes the source details you paste in (title, authors, year, publisher, and a URL or DOI if you have one) and returns a properly formatted APA, MLA, or Chicago citation. It does not visit links or look anything up.
Format a citation in three steps.
Paste your source details.
Title, authors, year, publisher, page numbers, link. Whatever you have.
Pick a style.
Choose APA, MLA, or Chicago format.
Copy your citation.
Get a properly formatted citation ready for your bibliography.
Citations are the quick part.
Typeahead helps with the pages before them, suggesting the rest of each sentence in Word, or in Google Docs after a one-time setup.
It never writes your sources for you. It suggests the next few words of your own sentence, and it runs on your Mac with no account.
Get TypeaheadCommon questions
Yes. No login, no card. You can format a full reading list in one sitting, within a per-visitor daily cap.
APA 7th edition, MLA 9th edition, and Chicago 17th edition in notes-bibliography form. Each result includes the reference-list entry and the matching in-text citation.
The tool never invents a missing detail. It puts a bracketed placeholder such as [author unknown] or [year?] in the citation and lists what is 'Still needed' underneath. If the source truly has no author, APA and MLA both start the entry with the title, so move it into the author position by hand.
Not on its own. The tool formats the details you give it and never visits links or looks anything up, so a bare URL comes back as mostly placeholders. Paste the title, authors, year, and publisher alongside the URL and everything lands in the right slot.
A Digital Object Identifier, the permanent ID attached to most academic papers (it looks like 10.1000/xy123). If your source has one, include it and it gets formatted into the citation. If you've never seen one, you probably don't need it.
Automatically generated citations can occasionally miss a detail, especially for sources with incomplete metadata. It's worth a quick check against your style guide before you submit anything.
The source details you paste are sent to Google Gemini, our AI provider, which formats the citation and returns it. We don't store it, sell it, or use it to profile you. The Typeahead Mac app is the on-device product, and it never sends your writing to a server.
Spend the time on the argument.
Typeahead finishes your sentences while you write the paper, in Word, Obsidian, and other Mac apps with a standard text field.