I've been waiting for this announcement for a while: Thomson ResearchSoft has finally announced the availability of EndNote X for Mac. The upgrade brings the new compressed library format to the mac, as well as PDF integration, and customizable library views. I say it's about time; I can finally stop keeping my libraries on the PC, which has had v.X since Spring. In addition, They've added some Mac-centric touches, like Spotlight integration (individual references can be returned by Spotlight searches) and customizable toolbars.For those of you paying attention: yes, the screenshot is from the PC version of X. The Mac version has been released, but I haven't seen my copy yet. Our account rep says it's on its way.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about: EndNote is a database program that is specifically designed to manage large bibliographies, share references with colleagues, and quickly search for information in a number of specialized online bibliographies and databases. It also, and perhaps most importantly for most people, integrates with Microsoft Word to reformat citations in documents to the house styles thousands of different academic journals and publications. Many researchers, graduate students, and academics of all kinds can't live without it. It retails for $299.99, but ask if your institution has a site license. Many do. There is a free 30-day demo available.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-31-2006 @ 8:15PM
Aaron said...
Another option is EasyBib
http://www.easybib.com/
Nice and free for basic operations.
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8-31-2006 @ 8:20PM
Qwfwq said...
EndNote X is an essential tool for any researcher and I can't imagine writing papers and reports without it. While EndNote previous upgrades have been a little bland in terms of features, EndNote X brings some significant improvements for managing references and PDF files. Nevertheless therev is still room for improvement and it would be nice to see some of the features found in Biblioscape adopted by Endnote, like for example the ability to organize references in folders inside a library.
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9-01-2006 @ 4:05AM
Padriac said...
EndNote, like AutoCAD, is a POS program that fills a niche just large enough to make it viable but not large enough for anybody to bother coming in and offering any serious competition. A lot of academic software is this way, actually (Statistical software springs to mind)
To Microsoft Word + EndNote I reply: LaTex + BibTex. The Former cost a lot and suck, the latter are free and do not.
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9-01-2006 @ 7:19AM
FilipeM said...
Word+Endnote do cost a lot, but suck? And LaTex+BibTex do not? Are uou serious. Do you really think that the typical user of Word+Endnote would switch to a markup language, giving up up WYSIWYG, spell-checking, powerful revision tools, powerful reference and pdf file management, bibliographic styles for almost all the journals in existence, etc.
You can't be serious
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9-01-2006 @ 12:49PM
Jay Savage said...
Padraic,
"Suck" is in the eye of the beholder. I'm a LaTeX fan myself, for everything except research. BibTeX is a nightmare for those of us in the humanities, which means LaTeX isn't much of an option. There is no decent MLA style. The ones in the disribution and CTAN are broken beyond repair and constructing one that actually works and handles corner cases is nearly impossible. I've tried. I finally broke down one night and wrote a replacement in Perl that got me through one paper I really needed to be in LaTeX. EndNote almost pays for itself on that alone, IMO.
Add to that drag and drop, system integration, and the fact that it's free to most academics, and you have a winner in my book.
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9-01-2006 @ 1:34PM
Qwfwq said...
@Padriac
There actually are a lot of competing products for bibliographic reference management. I addition to Biblioscape that I mentioned before, Thomson ResearchSof, the makers of Endnote, also sell Reference Manager and ProCite, and besides these there´s Bookends, Library Master, Papyrus, Bibliographix, Pybliographer and several other free managers that use the BibTex format. So it might be a niche but there's no lack of offers. I can't really speak of how they compare to EndNote, as this is the de facto standard for the Biological Sciences area.
After hearing a lot about LaTeX I briefly tried to learn it but found it and bit awkward and uncomfortable to handle and wasn't willing to sped the time to learn it's intricacies. I find Word's WYSIWYG much more intuitive and with the help of styles and heading it covers all my typesetting needs quite easily.
Unfortunately I don't think that EndNote is free to academics in Europe, but there's hardly any Intitution that cannot afford to buy a volume license - believe me its price is a small drop compared to what it takes to run a research lab.
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9-01-2006 @ 9:19PM
Padriac said...
Yes, well perhaps I should mention that I'm in a Mac-centric environment. Changes the landscape quite a bit. Qwfwq, as far as I can tell that eliminates all your options save for Bookends. How about EndNote not supporting the latest Mac version of Word for the longest time? That was a wonderful time to be a researcher. I love for my livelihood to depend on whether Microsoft feels like upgrading Word and, subsequently whether Thomson feels like upgrading EndNote to work with it. Closed file formats are the best.
I don't care how cool EndNote may or may not be for you. If I can't rely on the product, then I can't use it. I can't count on Thomson. I moved to LaTex and (the great) Bibdesk because of this. Bibdesk doesn't have quite the power of EndNote, but it's infinitely cheaper and I can count on it to actually exist. It's working with Bibtex format, so even if Bibdesk bites the dust I can just move onto another Bibtex friendly manager.
Nobody would argue that LaTex is more intuitive than Word, but WYSIWYG is pretty pointless when your field exactly dictates the form of everything you write. You don't need to worry about dictating format, and LaTex happily separates content from formatting.
And yes, I'm quite comfortable saying that Microsoft Word sucks for research needs. Defacto standard because of momentum and tradition, not because it's the best tool. "Track Changes" has basically locked everybody into this product (smart move on Microsoft's part... I'll give them that)
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9-02-2006 @ 7:29PM
Qwfwq said...
Oh and I forgot to mention Bibus, an opensource reference management tool that works with OpenOffice.org Write and Microsoft Word (Linux, Windows, MacOS X). I have not tried it yet but heard good things about it so it might be a good free alternative to EndNote.
Check it out at:
http://bibus-biblio.sourceforge.net
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