Gdtyjr

As the title says, I was given a reference list in the form of a .bbl file from a website, and I would like to generate a pdf from this. I've been googling for an hour but maybe I'm missing something. From what I understand, you create a .tex file, and use bibliography*name_of_file* but this doesn't work. I've also tried just pasting the contents of the .bbl file into the bibliography which also doesn't work.

Could someone give me a step by step guide on how to do this?

Welcome to TeX.SX!

Let's name your file "references.bib".

Create a document and name it "main.tex" with these contents:

documentclassarticle
usepackagenatbib

begindocument
nocite*
bibliographystyleapalike
%unsrt: Style with unsorted citations [1] [2]
%plain: [1] [2] etc but shorted 
%apalike: Author year style
%agsm: Harvard style
bibliographyreferences
enddocument

Then run:

pdflatex main
bibtex main
pdflatex main

and
pdflatex main

This will generate a document with your bibliography printed in your selected style.

Feel free to use geometry like:

usepackege[top=1in,bottom=1.2in,left=1in,right=1.5in]geometry

(add this command with your the margins you like to have in your preamble -for example just below documentclass command-)

or to remove page numbers buy using:

 pagestyleempty

somewhere after documentclass command.

EDIT:

Sorry... Just show you have a bbl file and not a bib... deleting my answer but leaving it for some minutes in order to see it and decide if you want to use your bib (if any) file instead and have access to the style at any time.... A bib file can give several styles of references... A bbl is just a specific output of a bib file and thus is less usable... So, if you have (or can get) a bib, try this method instead.

You did not gave us your *.bbl file and you did not name the web site you got the file so I have to guess. Please next question add all relevant information to make it easier for us to help you!

Let us say the *.bbl you got is:

providecommandlatin[1]#1
makeatletter
providecommanddoi
 begingroupletdo@makeotherdospecials
 catcode`=1 catcode`=2 doi@aux
providecommanddoi@aux[1]endgrouptexttt#1
makeatother
providecommand*mcitethebibliographythebibliography
csname @ifundefinedendcsnameendmcitethebibliography
 letendmcitethebibliographyendthebibliography
beginmcitethebibliography4
providecommand*natexlab[1]#1
providecommand*mciteSetBstSublistMode[1]
providecommand*mciteSetBstMaxWidthForm[2]
providecommand*mciteBstWouldAddEndPuncttrue
 defEndOfBibitemunskip.
providecommand*mciteBstWouldAddEndPunctfalse
 letEndOfBibitemrelax
providecommand*mciteSetBstMidEndSepPunct[3]
providecommand*mciteSetBstSublistLabelBeginEnd[3]
providecommand*EndOfBibitem
mciteSetBstSublistModef
mciteSetBstMaxWidthFormsubitem(alphmcitesubitemcount)
mciteSetBstSublistLabelBeginEnd
 mcitemaxwidthsubitemformspace
 relax
 relax

bibitem[Goossens latinet~al.(1994)Goossens, Mittelbach, and
 Samarin]Goossens
Goossens,~M.; Mittelbach,~F.; Samarin,~A. emphThe LaTeX Companion, 1st ed.;
 Addison-Wesley, 1994relax
mciteBstWouldAddEndPuncttrue
mciteSetBstMidEndSepPunctmcitedefaultmidpunct
mcitedefaultendpunctmcitedefaultseppunctrelax
EndOfBibitem
bibitem[Adams(1980)]adams
Adams,~D. emphThe Restaurant at the End of the Universe; The Hitchhiker's
 Guide to the Galaxy; Pan Macmillan, 1980relax
mciteBstWouldAddEndPuncttrue
mciteSetBstMidEndSepPunctmcitedefaultmidpunct
mcitedefaultendpunctmcitedefaultseppunctrelax
EndOfBibitem
bibitem[Editor latinet~al.(2015)Editor, Editor2, and Editor3]test
Editor,~F., Editor2,~S., Editor3,~T., Eds. emphTest to show the effect;
 Publisher, 2015relax
mciteBstWouldAddEndPuncttrue
mciteSetBstMidEndSepPunctmcitedefaultmidpunct
mcitedefaultendpunctmcitedefaultseppunctrelax
EndOfBibitem
bibitem[Feynman(1969)]feynman
Feynman,~R.~P. Very High-Energy Collisions of Hadrons. emphPhys. Rev. Lett.
 textbf1969, emph23, 1415--1417relax
mciteBstWouldAddEndPuncttrue
mciteSetBstMidEndSepPunctmcitedefaultmidpunct
mcitedefaultendpunctmcitedefaultseppunctrelax
EndOfBibitem
endmcitethebibliography

To be able to use it in your tex code you need to know how it was produced. Therefore let us have a look to the following MWE (completed with a bib file and commands to produce the bibliography, resulting in the *.bbl shown above):

beginfilecontents*testbib.bib
@BookGoossens,
 author = Goossens, Michel and Mittelbach, Frank and 
 Samarin, Alexander,
 title = The LaTeX Companion,
 edition = 1,
 publisher = Addison-Wesley,
 location = Reading, Mass.,
 year = 1994,

@Bookadams,
 title = The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,
 author = Douglas Adams,
 series = The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
 publisher = Pan Macmillan,
 year = 1980,

articleeinstein,
 author = Albert Einstein,
 title = Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter K"orper. (German) 
 [On the electrodynamics of moving bodies],
 journal = Annalen der Physik,
 volume = 322,
 number = 10,
 pages = 891--921,
 year = 1905,
 DOI = http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/andp.19053221004,

@articleRoss2006,
 title = Treating the right patient at the right time: 
 access to heart failure care,
 author = Ross, H and Howlett, J and Arnold, J Malcolm O and 
 Liu, P and O’Neill, BJ and Brophy, JM and Simpson, CS and 
 Sholdice, MM and Knudtson, M and Ross, DB and others,
 journal = Canadian journal of Cardiology,
 volume = 22,
 number = 9,
 pages = 749--754,
 year = 2006,
 publisher = Elsevier,

@articleHeidenreich2013,
 title = Forecasting the impact of heart failure in the 
 United States a policy statement from the American Heart Association,
 author = Heidenreich, Paul A and Albert, Nancy M and 
 Allen, Larry A and Bluemke, David A and Butler, Javed and 
 Fonarow, Gregg C and Ikonomidis, John S and Khavjou, Olga 
 and Konstam, Marvin A and Maddox, Thomas M and others,
 journal = Circulation: Heart Failure,
 volume = 6,
 number = 3,
 pages = 606--619,
 year = 2013,
 publisher = Am Heart Assoc,

@bookmschinLearning,
author = Tom M. Mitchell, 
title = Machine learning,
publisher = Mac Gew Hill,
year = 1997,
volume = 4,
series = 10,
address = The address,
edition = 3,
month = 7,
note = An optional note,
isbn = 0071154671,

@miscmozart:KV183,
 author = Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus,
 title = Sinfonie g-Moll,
 year = 1773,
 address = Salzburg,
 note = New K"ochelverzeichnis Nr. 183, old version Nr. 25; 
 Erster Satz: Allegro con brio, Zweiter Satz: Andante, 
 Dritter Satz: Menuetto, Vierter Satz: Allegro,

endfilecontents*


documentclass[10pt,a4paper]article

usepackageshowframe % to visualise the typing area and margins
usepackagehyperref % better urls


begindocument

This is text with citeGoossens and citeadams.

nocite* % to test all bib entrys
bibliographystyleunsrt % <===========================================
bibliographytestbib

enddocument

Package filecontents here is only used to have tex code and bib file together in a compilable MWE, you need not to use filecontents!

To be able to use the file testbib.bbl now you need the following tex code (please see that cite commands are needed and the bibliographystyle used to create the *.bbl file):

documentclass[10pt,a4paper]article

usepackageshowframe % to visualise the typing area and margins
usepackagehyperref % better urls


begindocument

This is text with citeGoossens and citeadams.

nocite* % to test all bib entrys
bibliographystyleunsrt % <===========================================
inputtestbib.bbl % <=================================================

enddocument

With inputtestbib.bbl the bibliography is included in the document at that place you have inputtestbib.bbl:

At last please compare the result above with the result of the code with *.bib file: