References can be exported via a menu command, cut and paste, drag and drop, or a macOS service. Although it was created to import and export in BibTeX format for use in LaTeX documents, BibDesk has a built-in graphical editor for creating custom export templates using Apple's key-value coding, which the user can program to export selected references in any citation style or in any structured text format. Sample templates are included for plain text, RTF, HTML, RSS, and some other XML formats, and other templates are available on the BibDesk wiki.