Category Archives: Bibliographies

Essential software for academic work on Mac: 2021 update

Posted on June 12, 2021 by Aleh Cherp

It’s been seven years since I listed 25 apps essential for academic work on Mac. This list has proven to be very popular and relatively stable, but over the years I dropped or significantly reduced using 13 of these applications and … Continue reading →

Posted in Automation, Bibliographies, Collaboration, Files, Graphics, Notes, Presentations, Projects, Tasks, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

ReadCube Papers Beta – organising references

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Aleh Cherp

ReadCube Papers is a promising replacement for the best Mac reference and pdf organiser – Papers – that is sadly no longer supported. Also new Papers has a great interface and many feature of the old app it still needs a lot of work to catch up with the expectations. Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliographies, Writing | Tagged , | 22 Comments

Citing organisations in Papers 3.0

Posted on April 25, 2016 by Aleh Cherp

Organisations, rather than people, often co-author reports and other materials which should be cited and referenced in scientific work. After many trials and errors, I have finally resolved how to elegantly cite organisations with long names and short acronyms using Papers 3, my pdf … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliographies, Writing | Tagged | 17 Comments

Papers 3 library searchable by Spotlight

Posted on January 24, 2015 by Aleh Cherp

Since my first post about Papers 3, a reference and pdf-file management software, it has significantly matured to become one of if not the best in the field. The most recent addition (version 3.2.6) has been to make a Papers 3 library indexable … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliographies, Files | Tagged , | 40 Comments

What software do I really need for academic work on Mac?

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Aleh Cherp

A reader has just challenged me to re-think the software I use for academic work on Mac. Well, there are over 250 items in my Applications folder, but how many do I need to remain productive? So imagine that I have a completely new Mac with no … Continue reading →

Posted in Automation, Bibliographies, Email, Files, Graphics, Notes, Presentations, Projects, Tasks, Workflows, Writing | Tagged , , | 97 Comments

Papers 3: considerable improvements, but still beta

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Aleh Cherp

I have recently been asked to prepare one of the Oxford Bibliographies. This required sifting through, organizing and annotating a large number of references and so I decided to give Papers 3.0 another try. I have previously been disappointed by various deficiencies of this … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliographies | Tagged , , | 50 Comments

Trying Sente instead of Papers. Two annoying setbacks.

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Aleh Cherp

Following the disappointments with the recent version of Papers I am trying Sente 6, a competing reference and pdf management software. The initial impression is unfortunately not very good. First, I wanted to email two references to a colleague. Papers can do this through a … Continue reading →

Posted in Automation, Bibliographies | Tagged , , | 38 Comments

Papers 3: still disappointing

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Aleh Cherp

I was very optimistic about the most recent build of Papers 3. The company announced some change in file management (which I could not quite understand but decided that any change would be for the better). I have also found … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliographies | Tagged | 120 Comments

Papers 3 is here

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Aleh Cherp

Papers 3 have just graduated from the beta version! Here is a couple of first quick impressions. There is a change in handling of files, which many people intensely discuss here and which is a make-or-break feature for a pdf manager. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliographies | Tagged | 64 Comments

How reference managers could help is in our thinking process rather than just hold our libraries…

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Csaba Pusztai

I must admit I don’t seem to be perfectly happy with what reference manager software have to offer. I am probably unjust and have high expectations. After all, they are ‘reference managers’ and in that sense they are already over-performing. … Continue reading →

Posted in Annotation, Bibliographies, Notes | Tagged , | 35 Comments