I have a manual list of references in Word or PDF. Is there a quick way to convert it to BibTeX?

Have a go with the text2bib tool. (You'll need to create a free account on the page to start using it.)

Copy your references list into a plain text file, and save it with a .txtextension. Make sure that you have exactly one reference on each line (i.e. no new lines or line breaks in the middle of a reference); or make sure each reference is separated by a blank line.

Upload the .txt file on the text2bib web page, and select the options as necessary. Be sure to state how references are separated in your .txt file, or the conversion will not go correctly! You'll also want to make sure you have selected the correct file encoding of your .txt. Finally, if you have a lot of references in your list, you may want to set "Incremental Conversion" to No; otherwise text2bib will prompt you to verify each converted entry one by one.

When the conversion completes, you'll be able to view and download the generated .bib.