Bibliography management for Macs

March 26, 2008 4:46 PM

I am beginning to write articles for publication as well as starting with my doctoral dissertation. I am looking for a bibliography manager that will be compatible with Microsoft Word for Mac or OpenOffice for Mac/NeoOffice (these document formats are necessary since many journals require .doc submissions, so no LaTeX recommendations).

Specific features I need:
- Ability to generate in-line, footnote, and end-of-document reference info
- Ability to customize citation formats for odd sources within my field
- Ability to choose a different citation style (so I can alter the formatting to meet the requirements of multiple journals).
- Free is strongly preferred

My institution has a RefWorks subscription, but I don't think I will be able to access my account after I graduate, so I'd prefer another option.

While Google tells me that OpenOffice and the Windows version of Word have basic citation abilities, I have been unable to determine if they have all of these capabilities.

posted by philosophygeek to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

I used Endnote for my dissertation after trying many. Endnote can be a pain in the ass, but you can customize it to your liking, plus its almost a standard.

I know it works with Word 2004- not sure about 2008 though.

You shouldn't have any problems with formats as it has a boat load of them.
posted by rryan at 4:59 PM on March 26, 2008

these document formats are necessary since many journals require .doc submissions, so no LaTeX recommendations

Trying to be helpful globally even if it doesn't help you specifically:

In these circumstances, you can dump LaTeX to RTF or HTML with various converters.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:01 PM on March 26, 2008

Zotero for Firefox. While you're at it, get LibX.

If you use Google Scholar, go into your preferences, link to your local libraries and also set the pref to generate an export format.

Previous askme.
posted by idb at 5:13 PM on March 26, 2008 [2 favorites]

Not free, but excellent: Bookends
posted by stefnet at 5:38 PM on March 26, 2008

You university library may well have something like RefWorks on its server. As around and see what the library has, and what things it can get you at a discount. Endnote is great, BTW.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 5:56 PM on March 26, 2008

Not free, but Endnote is the defacto standard for bibliographic management.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:20 PM on March 26, 2008

Endnote. And if you use Google Scholar, you can set your preferences to automatically download any web references directly into Endnote.
posted by tamitang at 6:59 PM on March 26, 2008

I also use Endnote X1 with Office 2004. I'm waiting to update to 2008 because it sometimes take the Endnote people longer to update the Mac version when Office changes.

Also, I don't think there is any way to make Endnote interface with NeoOffice. I just tried it, and Endnote would not recognize the open NeoOffice document. If you have a .doc with Endnote refs embedded, you can open it in other apps, but you will not be able to add new refs from Endnote outside of Word.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 7:46 PM on March 26, 2008

BibDesk, though it is technically a BibTeX-based package, works great for me. I made my own Word-compatible export template for the cite styles I need to use, and have been getting by alright. I suspect EndNote is probably nicer and smoother, but BibDesk is free and does lots of neat things like organizing PDFs of papers, which is a big deal for me.
posted by Alterscape at 12:28 AM on March 27, 2008

I asked something similar 2 years ago and was recommended Sente. I've played around with EndNote and Zotero since, but time and again I've come back to Sente. I use it for all my shorter research publications, and for my thesis, and it's great. It is not free, but it has all your other required features, and it's very easy to learn and use.
posted by roofus at 2:23 AM on March 27, 2008

In these circumstances, you can dump LaTeX to RTF or HTML with various converters.

Those converters kind of suck. I use Endnote for these kinds of things. Since it's widely used, it's pretty easy to find help (online and offline). I've never heard of Sente, roofus. It looks very cool.
posted by bluefly at 3:37 AM on March 27, 2008

I used Endnote for my thesis and publications, and it worked well. Definitely check with your university computing department--at my school, students and faculty are able to download and use the full version for free (don't know how common this is, though).
posted by Jemstar at 6:41 AM on March 27, 2008