BibTeX is a software application which is used for reference management purposes. The main function of this application is to provide with formatting methodology for a list of references.

In order to complete the whole formatting process and store it in form of a single file the .BIB file format is used by the software. The reference entries which are added in the software are mentioned in the file with extension .BIB. The formatting technique used for creating a list of references is text based. This allows the software application to create files using minimum possible space and also allows the application to access the file swiftly.