ity of the standalone app as I have not used it for an extended time but I hear good things . If Mendeley , which has recently been acquired by Elsevier , goes over to the dark side and makes everything premium moving to Zotero would be an almost seamless switch . I did not start with Zotero as they did not have a standalone app at the time I started using reference management software , but they have come a long way since then . tion number 30 by letting my mouse hover over it . I also don ’ t have to find the buried supplementary files on the journal websites ; instead , I just click on the ‘ Enhance ’ button . Readcube is , quite simply , beautiful . Another feature I have advertised regularly is the ‘ Recommendations ’ feature , which allows Readcube to look through your library and find you relevant literature you may have missed . It has such an impressive algorithm that it beats Pubmed , ScienceDirect and feedly hands down . It has a wonderful citation editor and plugs into Word flawlessly . Its Pro version , however , does not come cheap and offers a lot of the
Dropbox . Dropbox is where I store my references . I do a minimum amount of Dropbox gardening by putting all my PDFs in a folder there and asking Mendeley to watch this folder . I also do semi-regular imports on Readcube from the same folder , which Mendeley has helped me keep tidy and organised . Readcube helpfully adds supplemental materials to this folder and Mendeley renames them . Readcube helps me read them and sometimes download more related papers to the same folder . Dropbox makes sure Mendeley watches them on all my devices and so the trapeze act continues . I still continue to check on updates and new software ( currently frowning at Paperpile and Flow ) because I ’ ll jump ship the minute something better comes around . That ’ s how I convince myself I ’ m still young . Either way , it ’ s a helpful world out there and you really don ’ t have to use Endnote .
EndNote Mendeley Papers Readcube RefWorks Zotero
Platform |
Cross-platform |
Desktop & Web |
|
|
components , |
|
|
cross-platform |
Cost
Direct search of online catalogues or databases
Compatible word processors
Missing features / Problems
Notable features
$ 299.95 , free to Uni-Tuebingen ( web version free )
Free with free online storage of 2 GB , with premium features
Mac , Windows and iOS
Desktop & Web components , cross-platform
$ 79 Free app with premium features for $ 55 / year web-based , browser-access
Mac , Windows , Linux standalone , webbased
$ 100 / year Free with free online storage of 500 MB
Yes No Yes Yes Yes No
Word , Open Office and Pages , LaTex through BibTex
Ease of use , affordability
Automatic downloading of PDFs from within interface , most widely used
Word , Open Office and Pages , Google Docs and LaTex through BibTex
Integrated search , annotations and notes not saved in exportable , cross-platform form
Excellent integration with Word to create bibliography in many journal styles , steep learning curve , works excellently with Zotero , social features
Word , Open Office , Pages , TextEdit , HTML
Stability
Design and excellent integration with Word and Pages
Word
Many features still in beta
Also available for Kindle , best PDF viewer , Recommended articles based on your library
Any word processor or program which can save files as RTF
Dated until it starts using the Flow interface
No software needed , steep learning curve ,
Word , Open Office , Google Docs , LaTex through BibTex
Ease of set-up , integrated PDF viewer , integrated search , tags
Notes can stand alone or be attached to PDFs , registration optional , syncs with Mendeley , best meta data extraction
Features I didn ’ t know I missed in Mendeley , I found in Readcube . If you ’ ve read a Nature paper , you have at least seen this combination of letters in this context . Nature , and more recently other journals , offer the Readcube PDF viewer , which is the winning feature of this system . Readcube is now a full-fledged reference management software available as a standalone application with beta features being developed as I write this ( Jan 17 , 2016 ). The PDF viewer has inline references and an automatic supplemental information download . My PDF reading experience has been vastly improved . Now , while reading a paper , I know which article is cita- features that Mendeley does for free , like syncing across multiple devices or watching a folder for automatic imports . The way I get around this is by using my third system .
Pooja Viswanathan , India Neural and Behavioural Sciences Master ’ s Program , ‘ 12 Currently a GTC Doctoral student at the Institute of Neurobiology in the lab of Prof . Dr . Andreas Nieder
July 2016 | NEUROMAG | 11