bibliottHow to Cite a PDF in MLA 9th edition
Format, in-text rule, and a copy-paste example for PDFs in MLA. Citing a PDF — usually a report, government document, or working paper.
MLA format for PDFs
Author Last, First. Title of Document. Publisher, Year, URL. PDF.
United Nations. World Happiness Report 2023. UN, 2023, worldhappiness.report/ed/2023/WHR+23.pdf. PDF.
Pro tip
MLA accepts an optional "PDF." note at the end to flag the format.
Information you need
Before generating your MLA citation, gather these details from the pdf:
Author or organization
Year
Title
Publisher
URL or DOI
[PDF] format note (some styles)
Common mistakes to avoid
✗Citing the PDF as a website without identifying the underlying source type
✗Forgetting that many PDFs are reports, not books
✗Listing google.com or scribd.com as the publisher
Other MLA guides
Frequently asked questions
For a pdf in MLA, you'll need: Author or organization, Year, Title, Publisher, URL or DOI, [PDF] format note (some styles). bibliott auto-detects most of these from a URL or DOI.
Citing the PDF as a website without identifying the underlying source type
Yes — the example follows the official MLA 9th edition format. Replace the author, title, year and other fields with your source's data, or use the bibliott generator to do it automatically.