Best Reference Management Software

[skaertus]

In your opinion, which is the best reference management software for Mac? Which one do you use for your research and for inserting references on your academic work?

 

[Brian Y]

I use Papers.

I have a bookmarklet which automatically adds a PDF to my library. The library syncs using dropbox, and since I have a copy of the PDFs, I can read them offline, including on my iPad/iPhone.

 

[redkamel]

In your opinion, which is the best reference management software for Mac? Which one do you use for your research and for inserting references on your academic work?

Papers, without a doubt.
I still use papers2, no need to upgrade to the newer one for me.
Stores all my journal articles, renames them, they are searchable and sortable and I can write notes. Metadata automatically pulls in from many online libraries. It syncs across devices as well (I am pretty sure the app has to be purchased though)

Manuscripts, as the tool within Papers is called, works much better than Endonote for managing references. It is much simpler to use. This may be a plus or minus; endnote had a lot of options I never used and the ability to share, which I didn't use either. It was also one of the most mind numbingly poorly designed pieces of software I ever used. Once you set up Manuscripts and the citation format, it is very simple. Works with Word, not sure about Papers but most likely it does.

Call up the Manuscripts toolbar, search your library and insert the reference. Once you are done, Manuscripts will make the references page for you. However, it doesn't live update, which would be awesome.

 

[Dark Dragoon]

I use Papers2 (haven't upgraded to 3) which has worked well for me for storing, organising and pulling in meta data for documents.

For referencing I export the selection I need to a .bib file, then use the copy cite command whenever I need to reference something. This puts the cite into the clipboard, so I can paste it into the LaTeX file I'm working on.

 

[jojoba]

I use Bookends to import and organise my pdfs, and EndNote for cite while you write.

I find EndNote the most accurate app in terms of cite while you write functionality, and it's also easier to import books and book chapters from library data bases into EndNote. However, EndNote sucks at everything else and the UI is so outdated. Their iPad app came way too late (which was a deal breaker for me), and when it finally came, it wouldn't speak to my version of Endnote. Bookends is excellent for organising pdfs, and their support is very good. It also speaks fairly well with Devonthink, which I use for literature notes.

However, I'm planning to test Bookends properly soon for CWYW and reference a full paper with it. I tend to keep to EndNote partially because I've used it for so many years and I know how to manipulate the styles and so on, so I need to just dive into it with BE at some point.

I've used Papers and Sente in the past. I moved from Papers to Sente because I found it much easier to work with tags in Sente (and I preferred the interface and loved the targeted browsing). I moved from Sente to Bookends because I wanted full text searches in my library, and because the support is so good.

I've written about Sente and Bookends here:

http://macademise.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/managing-your-research-literature-sente-versus-bookends/

http://macademise.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/reference-management-exploring-sente/

 

[jorgk]

In your opinion, which is the best reference management software for Mac? Which one do you use for your research and for inserting references on your academic work?

Using Zotero right now. It's free, so nothing to complain about. Probably not as easy as Endnote, Papers or the like, but it does work.
Can import many journal specific referencing templates - but I guess all SW packages can do that. Needed some tweaking recently for a journal, but was easy doable.
YMMV, but this one works and is free. Don't get wysiwyg - still have to make/update the bibliography, but that works fine and why loose your $$$.

 

[skaertus]

I used Word and Endnote to handle the citations in my PhD thesis. It did the job well, but I had to disable cite-while-you-write because after a few hundred (or thousand) references, it became too slow and sluggish, even on a Core i7 with 8 GB RAM. I chose to play safe using this software, and I wonder whether I would have a better experience by using other software. Zotero seemed to be particularly good, but when I found that out I had done almost all my references with Endnote already...

 

[skaertus]

Has anybody used Citavi or Biblioscape for Windows?