Bookends

We find Bookends for the Mac to be invaluable, and this version is useful for looking up references that we entered on the Mac, but it entering new references on this version is awkward.

I moved from endnote to book ends. I like it very much. The only thing is how I can add newspapers and other non-academic sources without having to do it manually. Any suggestions anyone?

I switched from Papers 3 a few months ago (for both iOS and macOS) and I’m not looking back. Tons of features, very transparent storage model, and absolutely fabulous customer support. Thanks for making my scientific workflow productive again!

Great app, even greater customer support. Switched from Papers 3 since it has been deprecated for two years and does not run well on newer MacOSs.

The desktop version of Bookends is a very mature product - very powerful, well thought-out. The IOS version is a very good companion. it is easy to use and quite powerful. i highly recommend it.

I’m a PhD student in Psychology and I needed a reference manager where I could store everything (including PDFs) in one place. Bookends is to research papers what iTunes is to MP3s. I use both the desktop app and the iOS app and so far everything has been seamless. On public transport to school I read and annotate PDFs on my iPad then when I turn on my Mac at school, all of my comments and highlights are automatically synced. I also have the app on my phone just in case I forgot the author or name of a paper no matter where I am, that’s also handy. I read some reviews where people complain about paying, all things considered the price of the app and subscription is quite reasonable considering how integral this is to my workflow and being a productive researcher. As a side note, I have tried Mendeley, Endnote, and Zotero and have not had the success and seamless flow across platforms that I have had with Bookends. It’s not fancy, but it works very well (so far).

I’m happy to have this app on my iPad, but for an annual subscription I expect more regular updates and a move towards more features. I’m disappointed that static groups and smart groups and folders don’t sync. Especially good on the iPad is reading, but this is hampered by the lack of PDF highlighting and note taking with the same functionality as on the desktop.

Great app if you have institutional access to circumvent paywalls -- especially good if you just want a simple PDF manager (the desktop app, however, has amazing configurability which necessitates an appropriate appreciation for metatag structuring and REGEX). Searches are fast and accurate if you know the bare minimum about research citation search terms and functions. Annotation works very well. Some issues: 1. EZproxy config doesn't persist, at least in my case; i'm required to input two pairs of school credentials when I should only need to input one. This might be school-specific, but it's a pain 2. Lacks the retrieve-autocomplete function the OS X app strongly benefits from. PDFs I send to the app don't seem to enjoy any metadata autocomplete, and dont seemingly sync with their bigger desktop brother (ill be troubleshooting this further) 3. No automate/push capacity for searches, but returns are extremely efficient and thankfully stripped of cloggy/cutesy UI design 4. needs more clarity as to PDF accessibility based on Library.db access. I have both in-app purchases but found I could only actually access the full texts when Iused Bookends Wi-Fi sync. Cloud sync simply didn't work; it populated all of my refs but wouldn't allow access to the attachments, network-unrelated (though this may not end up the case for everyone)

This app features an extremely poor design. The articles are hard to distinguish from one another and makes navigating them difficult. Additionally, the search results are terrible, and only bring up a handful of results that are nothing like searching on the actual site. An article that I easily found on the JSTOR site, for example, was impossible to find using this app. Not impressed.

There simply isn’t a better reference management and annotation software package out there. Syncs flawlessly across devices, excellent search and indexing features. Should be everyone’s first purchase when they’re admitted to graduate school.