Getting Started

To get started with VOSviewer, you may want to take a look at some of the sources of information listed below.

VOSviewer manual

The VOSviewer manual provides detailed and up-to-date information on the functionality of VOSviewer. The manual can also be accessed using the Manual button in VOSviewer.

Open VOSviewer manual

 

VOSviewer book chapter

VOSviewer is discussed in detail in a recent book chapter. The chapter provides a tutorial in which the use of VOSviewer is demonstrated in a step-by-step manner. The chapter is based on VOSviewer version 1.5.5. Some of the improvements and extensions introduced in the most recent versions of VOSviewer are therefore not covered in the chapter. In addition to VOSviewer, the chapter also discusses the CitNetExplorer tool for visualizing and analyzing citation networks of publications.

Open VOSviewer book chapter

VOSviewer paper

VOSviewer was originally introduced in a paper published in Scientometrics in 2010. In the meantime, VOSviewer has been improved and extended in many ways, so the paper is not fully up-to-date anymore. However, it still provides a useful introduction into the main ideas underlying VOSviewer.

Open VOSviewer paper

AIDA bookletAIDA booklet

The AIDA booklet introduces diverse case studies on research positioning and trend identification. These case studies are relevant for PhD candidates, researchers, group leaders, and policy makers. Many of the case studies make use of VOSviewer.

Open AIDA booklet

Comments

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  • makeki April 19th, 2026 6:17 pm
    ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
    │ مدل دیپلماسی فرهنگی نوین جمهوری اسلامی ایران │
    └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

    ┌───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────┐
    │ │ │
    ▼ ▼ ▼
    ┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────┐
    │ بعد نظری │ │ بعد هویتی- │ │ بعد ارتباطی- │
    │ │ │ تمدن محور │ │ میان فرهنگی │
    └────────┬────────┘ └────────┬────────┘ └────────┬────────┘
    │ │ │
    └───────────────┬───────────────┴───────────────┬───────────────┘
    │ │
    ▼ ▼
    ┌─────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────┐
    │ بعد هدف و انتظار │ │ بعد ابزاری-کاربردی │
    └───────────────┬─────────────┘ └───────────────┬─────────────┘
    │ │
    └───────────────┬───────────────┘


    ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
    │ بعد آسیب شناختی │
    └─────────────────────────────────────┘
    Reply
  • makeki April 19th, 2026 6:12 pm
    ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
    │ مدل دیپلماسی فرهنگی نوین جمهوری اسلامی ایران │
    └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

    ┌───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────┐
    │ │ │
    ▼ ▼ ▼
    ┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────┐
    │ بعد نظری │ │ بعد هویتی- │ │ بعد ارتباطی- │
    │ │ │ تمدن محور │ │ میان فرهنگی │
    └────────┬────────┘ └────────┬────────┘ └────────┬────────┘
    │ │ │
    └───────────────┬───────────────┴───────────────┬───────────────┘
    │ │
    ▼ ▼
    ┌─────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────┐
    │ بعد هدف و انتظار │ │ بعد ابزاری-کاربردی │
    └───────────────┬─────────────┘ └───────────────┬─────────────┘
    │ │
    └───────────────┬───────────────┘


    ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
    │ بعد آسیب شناختی │
    └─────────────────────────────────────┘
    Reply
  • eva April 19th, 2026 4:01 pm
    thank you
    Reply
  • Sabreya Khanom Zuma April 19th, 2026 3:34 pm
    Reply
  • Amanda Nurhikmah April 19th, 2026 11:11 am
    Reply
  • Echo Ma April 14th, 2026 3:32 am
    Reply
  • Echo Ma April 13th, 2026 11:47 am
    Reply
  • Echo Ma April 13th, 2026 11:41 am
    Reply
  • 莉莉安 April 7th, 2026 4:56 am
    我想去玩
    Reply
  • Shailendri yadav April 4th, 2026 11:41 am
    Reply
  • asmaa zainati April 3rd, 2026 11:15 am
    Reply
  • Marifat March 30th, 2026 8:16 am
    Reply
  • Mokhichekhra March 20th, 2026 2:46 am
    Inspired by a VOSviewer-based network visualization, I installed the software and began applying bibliometric analysis techniques. The tool offers significant potential for exploring scientific knowledge structures and identifying emerging research directions.
    Reply
  • fatima March 11th, 2026 10:54 pm
    Reply
  • Evelyn Rrachel March 5th, 2026 3:34 pm
    yes girl
    Reply
  • Ammara March 5th, 2026 4:59 am
    hi
    Reply
  • Sarath SL February 27th, 2026 5:49 am
    I need to Login VOS viewer to do some work
    Reply
  • arta February 26th, 2026 8:59 am
    How can I work if I got the data from Science Direct or IEEExplore?
    Reply
  • Basma Shalaby February 9th, 2026 7:24 pm
    Reply
  • Raphael February 9th, 2026 1:54 pm
    Why does the message “The application ‘VOSviewer’ can't be opened” appear when opening VOSviewer on M1 Mac OS Tahoe?
    Reply
  • Жанна February 8th, 2026 10:13 am
    Reply
  • Reyhane Layeghi February 6th, 2026 10:49 am
    Reply
  • Abu Sammang January 26th, 2026 7:01 pm
    Reply
  • Petra December 17th, 2025 3:59 pm
    Dear,
    I am trying to use an Endnote file to create a new map in Vosviewer. However the system gives me the following error: error while reading EndNote file: cannot find title (%T) or abstract (%X) field.
    sometimes the error mentions that it cannot find keywords.
    I see that other people encounter similar problems, but their solutions do not work.
    kind regards, Petra
    Reply
  • Irina December 12th, 2025 9:52 am
    Dear sir or Madam,
    Is it required to obtain specific authorization for using the outputs generated by VosViewer when submitting a scientific publication? If such authorization is needed, what are the appropriate steps to request it?
    Reply
    • Nees Jan van Eck December 12th, 2025 11:30 am
      You are free to include any visualizations and other results produced by VOSviewer in your work. No special permission is needed. If you would like, you can optionally cite the following paper to acknowledge the tool:
      https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3. Best of luck with your research!
      Reply
    • Turyasingura Benson January 11th, 2026 10:59 pm
      How can I save the images in higher resolution???
      Reply
      • Nees Jan van Eck January 12th, 2026 8:42 am
        Click 'Screenshot...' -> 'Options...' and increase scaling from '200%' to for example '400%'.
        Reply
  • Joana December 5th, 2025 4:22 pm
    Hi, I've encountered an issue when extracting csv from Scopus and conducting co-citation by cited authors analysis. The result gives me significantly less authors than there are. I have a year older csv file that works perfectly and gives out clusters of co-authors. I have tried replacing ";" with "," however it does not work as it corrupts the file beyond usage in VOSviewer.
    Do you have a solution for that?
    Reply
    • Nees Jan van Eck December 12th, 2025 11:21 am
      I’m sorry to hear about the problems you have encountered with the Scopus CSV files. This issue is best reported directly to Scopus, as it appears to be on their side.
      It seems that Scopus has changed the file format again, something that has happened multiple times in the past. We have previously updated our processing and parsing algorithms to accommodate such changes. For example, the most recent update supports the relocation of the publication year to the end of each reference string. However, this time the modification seems to involve how author names are recorded.
      Tools like VOSviewer depend on a stable and consistent format. When reference formatting becomes instable and inconsistent, it makes reliable processing extremely challenging.
      In addition, and even more problematic, it seems that only the first 10 references of each paper are currently included in the Scopus CSV export files. This severely impacts any citation-based analysis, making it unreliable and essentially unusable.
      Reply
  • Sari masitoh November 29th, 2025 5:45 am
    “Pemanfaatan media plastisin untuk meningkatkan motivasi belajar matematika siswa sekolah dasar kelas II/B Sekolah Dasar Islam Terpadu Andalusia / sem 1 pal 9 Sungai Mengkuang.”
    nilai kebaruan novelty
    Reply
  • Hassan Farfoura November 16th, 2025 9:07 am
    Hi i want a multipele choices about new research titel
    Reply
  • Ain November 14th, 2025 9:02 am
    teach me how to use this VOSviewer
    Reply
  • M Hababa November 14th, 2025 8:36 am
    Hi! I work at a foundation and we would like to have an overview in Vosviewer of our funded projects. For this I started with an excel file, with a number of columns and associated data. Unfortunately I cannot seem to convert this file into a text file that is readable by Vosviewer. If I would like to do it this way, what columns are necessary to include? For example, are the is it always necessary to include coordinates and weight or correlation numbers? Thanks!
    Reply
  • M Hababa November 14th, 2025 8:31 am
    Hi! I work at a foundation and we would like to have an overview in Vosviewer of our funded projects. For this I started with an excel file, with a number of columns and associated data. Unfortunately I cannot seem to convert this file into a text file that is readable by Vosviewer. If I would like to do it this way, what columns are necessary to include. For example, are the is it always necessary to include coordinates and weight or correlation numbers? Thanks!
    Reply
  • J Sterjovski November 7th, 2025 2:04 am
    Great tool!
    Is it possible to only select certain authors in a co-authorship map? We want to show the co-authorship links only between a group of investigators on a grant application (10-20 researchers). I'm using scopus to extract the co-author papers to create the map, but we don't want to show the hundreds of other authors listed on papers. Is there a way to show/hide authors in a map or do I need to prepare the bibliometric file differently? Thanks!
    Reply
    • Nees Jan van Eck November 9th, 2025 1:57 pm
      Great question! Yes, it is definitely possible to include only a specific group of authors in a co-authorship map. In the final step of the Create Map Wizard, you can manually select or deselect the items (in this case authors) you want to include in the visualization. This is the most straightforward way to limit your map to just the researchers of interest. I hope this helps!
      Reply
  • iranita November 5th, 2025 4:35 pm
    I want to map my research with VOS Viewer.
    Reply
  • nazua November 5th, 2025 2:22 am
    -
    Reply
  • Evelyn Foster November 2nd, 2025 12:38 am
    Utilizar de manera apropiada estas aplicaciones y ampliar conocimiento
    Reply
  • afia saiara akhi November 1st, 2025 7:52 am
    nice
    Reply
  • caishijie October 29th, 2025 2:22 pm
    Reply
  • Jonathan Breckon October 1st, 2025 9:17 am
    can you upload RIS files in Vosviewer JAR version?
    My MacOS (13.7.8) is unable to download the standalone version and says ''Unable to load runtime Java Environment' despite uploading Version 8 of Java
    But I can do the JAR version as you recommend in previous threads. But I suspect functionality more limited on JAR version and cant use RIS files. Is that correct?
    Reply
    • Nees Jan van Eck October 3rd, 2025 12:12 pm
      There is no difference in functionality between the macOS, Windows, and JAR versions of VOSviewer. They all support the same features, including processing RIS files. The JAR version is essentially the same application, just launched differently.
      Reply
      • Jonathan Breckon October 3rd, 2025 1:47 pm
        Thanks - that is good to know that no difference, however I can't access any of my RIS files on my Macbook Air via the JAR version. When you click on 'select RIS files' it does not gain you access to my files and folders. Any idea how you can do this?
        Reply
        • Nees Jan van Eck October 7th, 2025 12:08 pm
          I’m not a Mac user myself, but it sounds like Java (which VOSviewer runs on) doesn’t currently have permission to access your file system. You might try checking your macOS privacy and security settings under System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Files and Folders (or Full Disk Access) to ensure Java or the VOSviewer JAR has permission to open and save files.
          Reply
  • Sheelprabha Takawale September 7th, 2025 3:58 pm
    Using for my data interpretation
    Reply
  • Trilochan Satapathy August 16th, 2025 12:06 pm
    want a vosviewer image
    Reply
  • Saman August 6th, 2025 1:40 pm
    Hi,
    I saved my file from ENnote with.RIS format, but in an online VOS viewer. It does not know it and the errors with not correct format. What should I do?
    Reply
    • Nees Jan van Eck August 7th, 2025 9:14 pm
      Creating visualizations based on RIS files is only supported in the standalone version of VOSviewer, which you can download from: www.vosviewer.com/download. Please see the VOSviewer manual for more detailed information.
      Reply
  • Eduardo Guilherme Nuncio August 3rd, 2025 4:59 am
    Dear All,
    To conduct bibliometric research, I searched Scopus and Web of Science because not all articles are in a single database. I have 71 articles in Scopus and 6 in Web of Science. However, I'm unsure how to import both databases and generate the analysis together. Is it possible to import both files from different databases and develop a single analysis together? Thank you for your attention.
    Reply
    • Nees Jan van Eck August 4th, 2025 8:27 pm
      While it might seem useful to combine data from both Scopus and Web of Science for a more comprehensive analysis, in practice, this is highly challenging due to significant differences in the file formats and metadata structures used by the two data sources. Unfortunately, VOSviewer does not support merging files from Scopus and Web of Science. The software is designed to work with one data source at a time, and it does not offer functionality to reconcile or integrate the differing formats automatically. Merging the files yourself won't be possible either, as the metadata fields and formatting conventions between the two data sources differ considerably. So, I’m afraid there is no easy or recommended way to combine data from Scopus and Web of Science.
      Reply
  • Arnab Banerjee July 30th, 2025 6:02 pm
    I have VOSviewer on my wisdows system and it works just fine.
    It is a wonderful piece of software and thank you (developers) for the free access (unlike citespace or some others).
    But there is a problem that I encounter on my mac.
    The software does not run and the error pops up "Unable to load Java runtime environment".
    I have Java installed (multiple times and various versions) and set up. But to no avail it seems.
    In the trailing comments I found someone used the intel version of the java, even for M series macs; but that does not work (at least not now) as my mac won't let me install the intel version.
    I would really like a solution or a setup guide. I have tried my best including resorting to all (that I could) youtube videos of java installation.
    Any help would be really appreciated.
    I am using the M3 version mac with the latest software.
    Reply
    • Nees Jan van Eck July 30th, 2025 6:15 pm
      I am sorry to hear about the issues you are experiencing. The Mac version of VOSviewer is not always recognizing the installed Java environment correctly. This can occasionally happen on Windows as well. If you have problems running the Mac (or Windows) version of VOSviewer, then my recommendation is to try the JAR version: https://www.vosviewer.com/downloads/VOSviewer_1.6.20_jar.zip.
      Reply
      • Arnab Banerjee July 30th, 2025 7:53 pm
        Thank you for the solution. It worked.
        Reply
  • Eug Han July 28th, 2025 7:46 pm
    Hi, I have an apple m4 and when i open the VOSviewer app it says it is unable to load the Java runtime environment. I have tried everything from downloading Java 8 to 21 to 24, as well as the respective x86-64 Intel versions following advice from a different comment below. What version of Java needs to be downloaded on Silicon Mac to make this work?
    The download page needs an update very badly.
    Reply
    • Nees Jan van Eck July 30th, 2025 6:12 pm
      I am sorry to hear about the issues you are experiencing. The Mac version of VOSviewer is not always recognizing the installed Java environment correctly. This can occasionally happen on Windows as well. If you have problems running the Mac (or Windows) version of VOSviewer, then my recommendation is to try the JAR version: https://www.vosviewer.com/downloads/VOSviewer_1.6.20_jar.zip.
      Reply
      • Aisyiah Al Adawiyah October 28th, 2025 4:50 am
        Hi. I already downloaded it, but it didn't work correctly. It said that Apple could not verify that VOSviewer.jar is free of malware that may harm your Mac...
        Please help me, thanks before.
        Reply
  • CLARA CHAVEZ July 27th, 2025 8:01 am
    I will try this tool. Thank you
    Reply
  • Dani Harris July 14th, 2025 9:58 pm
    Hi,
    I really like your viewer and would like to use it. Is there a way to import data from excel? This is where the final version of my SLR search is saved. I can't see how to import data from excel though.
    Thanks,
    Dani
    Reply
    • Nees Jan van Eck July 16th, 2025 12:03 pm
      VOSviewer doesn't support importing data directly from Excel files. It works with bibliographic data files that are exported from bibliographic data sources and reference manager tools. Supported file formats include: OpenAlex JSON, Dimensions CSV, Lens CSV, Scopus CSV, Web of Science plain text and tab-delimted, PubMed, and RIS (used by tools like EndNote, Zotero, and Mendeley).
      Reply
  • Glenet Montiman July 10th, 2025 3:20 pm
    please update the trends on the journal related to Agriculture
    Reply
  • Acheampong Richmond June 30th, 2025 4:38 pm
    Really need help with this all important of Gid
    Reply
  • Antoneth Solayao June 6th, 2025 12:08 pm
    Phytochemical-Based Drug Innovations: A Patent Landscape Study (2004–2024)
    Reply
  • Hamid Nazaripour June 2nd, 2025 10:16 pm
    Dear VOSviewer Development Team,
    I hope this message finds you well. My name is Dr. Hamid Nazaripour, and I am a faculty member at the University of Sistan and Baluchestan (Zahedan, Iran), specializing in Data Analysis.
    VOSviewer is an invaluable tool for my academic research and teaching activities, particularly in visualizing bibliometric networks and analyzing scholarly data. As this software will be used strictly for non-commercial, educational purposes, I kindly request a free academic license (or extended access) to support my work and my students’ learning.
    Purpose of Use:
    Teaching research methodology and science mapping techniques to graduate/undergraduate students.
    Supporting student theses and research projects involving bibliometric analysis.
    Conducting academic research in collaboration with my department.
    If required, I am happy to provide official university documentation (e.g., a letter of verification) to confirm my academic affiliation.
    Thank you for considering this request. Your software significantly advances our research capabilities, and I deeply appreciate your support for the academic community.
    Best regards,
    Dr.Hamid Nazaripour
    University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran
    Reply
    • Nees Jan van Eck June 3rd, 2025 8:50 am
      Thank you for your kind message and for your interest in VOSviewer. We are pleased to hear that VOSviewer is supporting your research and teaching activities in such meaningful ways.
      VOSviewer can be used freely for any purpose without restrictions, including academic research, teaching, and student projects. There is no need for a separate license or extended access. You are welcome to use the software in your courses and research work without limitation.
      Reply
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