CAUSEYPIKE EndNote has driven me slightly crazy for the last few years, so I don't really use it any more, but it's cite-while-you-write feature is still more powerful than anything else. Both are excellent programs for managing your pdfs, maintaining a reference library, and generating bibliographies on demand. I've used both very extensively, including current versions and previous versions of Bookends and Sente. Details below... - Both are very stable programs, and don't crash (unlike EndNote, unless X3 has dramatically improved). They play very nicely with loads of word processors and are very reliable. - Sente: it's built-in browser uses webkit, i.e. it's basically Safari. You can do standard web searches from within Sente. I like the 'targeted browsing' feature, which quickly shows you what you and don't have in your library already when you do pubmed search. - Bookends has a straightforward PubMed/other site searching window that works very well. It doesn't look like a standard browser page, but obviously does the same thing. Refs already in your library are highlighted in yellow in PubMed windows. It is very good at finding and loading pdfs. Updating incomplete refs: Bookends has a really nice host of tools to update refs. If you have a ref that got loaded in when it was online only, it's quick and easy to use a Bookends menu command to update the reference. There are a couple of ways of doing this, and it works well. Sente is supposed to do some auto-updating, but it doesn't seem to work nearly as well. I really like this handy feature. On a very large library (7,500 refs), Bookends is noticeably quicker at start-up (about 10 seconds quicker). Searches within the library are faster, and happen live as you type in the Spotlight window in the library. This is more responsive. Both allow you to quickly see your attached pdfs within the main window, open them into a standalone reader, etc. Sente supports pdf comments etc. Both allow you make and view notes etc very easily. Bookends 'email ref' works reliably and attaches any pdfs to your email. Helpful for finding and sending stuff to colleagues. Both Sente and Bookends offer good technical support, but Bookends is the best. Jon provides tech support, and is incredibly helpful. It's not that Sente is bad in any way, just that Jon and Bookends is superb. Working with Apple Pages: Both scan open Pages documents. Sente has a re-scan option that they are cautious about recommending. Haven't tried it myself - I use Pages all the time, but don't rescan a formatted doc, I always go back to the unformatted doc to edit. Both support scanning and rescanning with Word. I don't currently use them with Word, but have successfully used Bookends with Word in the past. You don't get the live formatting you see with EndNote cite-while-you-write, but this is no bad thing given the number of times it's caused hangs and crashes in my previous experience. I have a large Sente library which doesn't export the attachments absolutely reliably and puts them in the URL field rather than the attachments field. Bookends gets this right, and therefore it's easier to move a library out to EndNote from Bookends. Both import an EndNote library without problems. User help/ configuration of export filters etc. Online for Sente, a very thorough manual for Bookends. Formatting controls work fine on both. I used Bookends extensively, then switched to Sente when it was the first to be able to scan open Pages files. Bookends has now been doing this for a while. It's a bit quicker, and plays more nicely with EndNote (at least as things stand now). Reference updating is a bit easier. I slightly prefer the Sente online search (linking to the PubMed webpage), and Sente is very very slightly prettier, but the speed and other features of Bookends win out. Both are excellent, but I'm going to stick with Bookends.
(Version 11.0.0) | 
