Comments on: Bibliography management for Macs

Question: Bibliography management for Macs

philosophygeek — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:46:50 -0800

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.

By: rryan

rryan — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:59:08 -0800

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.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:01:53 -0800

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.

By: idb

idb — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:13:21 -0800

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.

By: stefnet

stefnet — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:38:18 -0800

Not free, but excellent: Bookends

By: gesamtkunstwerk

gesamtkunstwerk — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:56:20 -0800

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.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:20:39 -0800

Not free, but Endnote is the defacto standard for bibliographic management.

By: tamitang

tamitang — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:59:08 -0800

Endnote. And if you use Google Scholar, you can set your preferences to automatically download any web references directly into Endnote.

By: DiscourseMarker

DiscourseMarker — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:46:31 -0800

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.

By: Alterscape

Alterscape — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:28:57 -0800

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.

By: roofus

roofus — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:23:00 -0800

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.

By: bluefly

bluefly — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:37:43 -0800

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.

By: Jemstar

Jemstar — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:41:52 -0800

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).