citavi

Citavi is a reference management and knowledge organization software designed to help researchers collect, organize, and cite sources during academic work. It combines bibliographic management with a built-in knowledge base, allowing users to store references, quotes, summaries, and ideas, organized with categories, annotations, tasks, and outlines.

Citavi supports capturing bibliographic data and full texts from databases, websites, and library catalogs; PDFs can be imported and annotated, and quotes or notes can be linked to specific citations. It provides support for citation styles and offers tools to manage and format references within writing workflows. The program includes a Word add-in for inserting citations and generating bibliographies, and it can export references to common formats such as BibTeX, BibLaTeX, RIS, and other widely used citation formats.

Citavi is available as a Windows desktop application and also as a web-based version accessible via a browser. It offers different editions, including a Free edition with limited features and paid Pro or Teams editions designed for larger projects and collaboration. Projects can be stored locally on a computer or synchronized via Citavi Cloud to enable sharing and backup across devices.

Used primarily in academic settings, Citavi is valued for its integrated approach to literature management, note-taking, and task planning, which supports the phases of literature review, writing, and citation. It is commonly adopted in university environments, particularly in German-speaking regions, as part of research and scholarly writing workflows.