More importantly, you cannot export text you highlighted in PDFs, or comments you made in your PDFs. However, Mendeley does not export the virtual folder structure in which you organize your PDFs. Mendeley allows exporting bibliographic data of your PDFs (including tags) as BibTeX file. This means, only because you see an export button in your favorite reference manager, you shouldn’t think “All right, there is an export function, everything is great”.Ī prominent example for a non-complete export function is Mendeley. We emphasize the “ all your data” because some reference managers only offer an export function for some of your data. So, you should definitely check if the web-based reference manager allows you to export all your data or allows accessing the data via an API. In this case, chances are that other reference managers cannot access you data, especially not, if the provider of the web-based reference manager decides to turn-off its service. The latter point is of particular importance if you think about using a web-based reference manager (e.g.

Your reference manager allows direct access to your data, so other developers can write import filters for it.Your reference manager should be able to export your data in a standard format.Your data should be stored in a standard format that other reference managers can read.But then you are bound to the now not-so-perfect tool for the rest of your academic life. To being able to switch to another reference manager, your reference manager should be offering at least one of the following three functions (ideally the first one).

You might have had the perfect reference manager for the past one or two years. In this case it is crucial that your current reference manager doesn’t lock you in and allows switching to your new favorite reference managers. Otherwise, you will have a serious problem. A “lock-in feature” that prevents you from ever switching to a competitor toolĪ reference manager might offer exactly the features you need, but how about in a few years? Maybe your needs are changing, other reference managers are just becoming better than your current tool, or your boss is telling you that you have to use a specific tool. so harming in the long run) that you should not use it, even if it possesses all the other features you might need.ġ. What makes a bad – or evil – reference manager? We believe that there are three no-go ‘features’ that make a reference manager so bad (i.e. Then, if the bad references managers are found, it should be easier to identify the best one(s) from the few remaining. Today we want to have a more serious analysis, and propose to first identify the bad reference managers, instead of looking for the very best ones. So how can you find the best reference manager? Recently we had an ironic look at the question what the best reference managers are. Let’s face the truth: it’s impossible to determine which of the hundred potential features you really need. Unfortunately, each reviewer has its own preferences about which features are important, and so have you: Are many export formats more important than a mobile version? Is it more important to have metadata extraction for PDF files than an import for bibliographic data from academic search engines? Would a thorough manual be more important than free support? How important is a large number of citation styles? Do you need a Search & Replace function? Do you want to create synonyms for term lists (whatever that means)? …? Typically, reviewers gather a list of features and analyze which reference managers offer most of these features, and hence are the best ones. here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, … ). DocearĪt time of writing these lines, there are 31 reference management tools listed on Wikipedia and there are many attempts to identify the best ones, or even the best one (e.g. Update : For a detailed review of Docear and other tools, read Comprehensive Comparison of Reference Managers: Mendeley vs. Update : For some statistical data read On the popularity of reference managers, and their rise and fall

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