
EndNote | Jun 6 2009 |
NEURON Thanks, that info helps. I absolutely have to use Word. *All* - not most - of my colleagues use Word. I write scientific and medical manuscripts, and for every manuscript we pass back and forth at least 10 revisions, all with tracked changes. I hate using Word, I much prefer Scrivener then either Pages or Nisus, but that's the way it is. I guarantee every biomedical writer uses Word/Endnote if they have to collaborate on a manuscript. When I use Bookends and someone sends me a revision of a manuscript with a significant amount of tracked changes as well as changes in the references, Bookends has major problems with un-scanning and then re-scanning. The only way I can get this to work is usually by losing all the tracked changes. Its very frustrating. Anyways, I ended up buying Endnote X2.0.1, and to be honest, its working quite well. It imported my 2500 ref library, including linked PDFs, without a hitch. Its much quicker than Bookends. It hasn't crashed on me yet after a week of use on its own, without CWYW. I don't know if CWYW is causing Word 2008 to crash a lot, because Word 2008 is a crash-fest on its own anyways. Besides its ability to spontaneous quitting several times an hour, Word 2008 is the only program that will freeze my entire Mac and make me hard-restart (MacBook 13 inch 2.16 GHz 2 MB RAM OSX 10.5.7). (Version X2.0.1) | |
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EndNote | May 28 2009 |
NEURON I now realize that I have to use Endnote again. I love both Bookends and Sente, and Bookends has been my workhorse for the past 3 years. However, because nearly all of my colleagues use Word and Endnote (mostly on PCs), its almost unbearable collaborating on documents if I use Bookends to generate a bibliography. My main question before I plunk down $99 for the Endnote upgrade is the compatibility between PC and Mac Endnote-generated bibliographies in MS Word files. Specifically, if someone generates an Endnote bibliography on a PC in word, then sends me the references to import into my Mac Endnote, can I work with this Word document seamlessly using my Mac and Endnote? Any help is greatly appreciated. If I will have difficulty using a PC Endnote-bibliography with my Mac Endnote, then it will not be worth buying. I'd rather continue my collaborative struggles with Bookends. (Version X2.0.1) | |
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EndNote | Jun 2 2009 |
MARTINBB I think it depends on what you mean by "work with". As I understand, it, Endnote uses the unique ID number from each entry in its database when generating a bibliography (it goes to the database and fetches the information that matches the unique ID that is stored in the temporary citation). If you have a different database from that of your colleague, you will almost certainly have different unique IDs for each entry (the unique IDs are generated automatically by Endnote when you first enter the information for the journal, book, or whatever it is). Bookends is a lot more flexible, as it will use other information (such as the title) to match temporary citations to the entries in the database. If you want to exchange references with someone, I don't see why you need to use a Word document. The database entries could be exported direct from Endnote into an XML or other file that can be imported into Endnote or Bookends. As I say, I think it depends on what you want to do. (Version X2.0.1) | |

EndNote | Jun 6 2009 |
NEURON Thanks, that info helps. I absolutely have to use Word. *All* - not most - of my colleagues use Word. I write scientific and medical manuscripts, and for every manuscript we pass back and forth at least 10 revisions, all with tracked changes. I hate using Word, I much prefer Scrivener then either Pages or Nisus, but that's the way it is. I guarantee every biomedical writer uses Word/Endnote if they have to collaborate on a manuscript. When I use Bookends and someone sends me a revision of a manuscript with a significant amount of tracked changes as well as changes in the references, Bookends has major problems with un-scanning and then re-scanning. The only way I can get this to work is usually by losing all the tracked changes. Its very frustrating. Anyways, I ended up buying Endnote X2.0.1, and to be honest, its working quite well. It imported my 2500 ref library, including linked PDFs, without a hitch. Its much quicker than Bookends. It hasn't crashed on me yet after a week of use on its own, without CWYW. I don't know if CWYW is causing Word 2008 to crash a lot, because Word 2008 is a crash-fest on its own anyways. Besides its ability to spontaneous quitting several times an hour, Word 2008 is the only program that will freeze my entire Mac and make me hard-restart (MacBook 13 inch 2.16 GHz 2 MB RAM OSX 10.5.7). (Version X2.0.1) | |

Bookends | Sep 4 2008 |
NEURON I gave this program 4 stars a while back when it was at version 9.1. Its currently at v 10.3.2, and it is currently a solid 5 star app. When I started using this program over a year ago, I was desperately searching for an EndNote replacement. I tried this and Sente, and also tried Papers for a bit. Sente had a nicer UI, but wasn't as powerful or as stable at the time. Papers couldn't generate a bibliography. I went with Bookends and never looked back. I haven't looked at Sente or Papers since so I can't make a comparison, but I am perfectly satisfied. Bookends is now my workhorse and I have over 2000 references in my database, most with linked PDFs. I am a physician and a lab scientist and I use this program to file and maintain my collection of papers as well as write papers and grants. I collaborate occasionally with EndNote users and this goes fairly smoothly. Actually, my colleagues (PC using ones) usually salivate with envy when I fire up Bookends to find something in my library. Updates have incorporated very useful new features and have been very consistent. This is not only a viable alternative to EndNote, but it is an outstanding application. (Version 10.3.2) | |
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Bookends | Sep 24 2008 |
Can you respond to me offlist? I'd love to find out how you're using Bookends in your research. jwjathome@gmail.com (Version 10.3.3) | |

Apple Numbers | Oct 12 2007 |
NEURON Although I greatly appreciate the design and usability (far better than Excel), Numbers is absolutely too slow when working with large datasets (>10,000 rows of data). Specifically, Find and Save are much, much slower than Excel 2004 (MacBook 2.16 GHz with 2 GB RAM, OSX 10.4.10). Its nice for making and formatting lots of small tables, but for analyzing large datasets... unusable. (Version 1.0.1) | |
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Nisus Writer Express | Feb 17 2007 |
NEURON Great writing tool. Almost prime time, although at this point still a fantastic writing tool for basic writing, drafts, and the like. Only reason to use word for me is track changes. Also, to ensure compatibility (I opened the finished document in Word, save as Word file, then send it). Otherwise, its great, I like the interface, has most of the features I need, and is fas, responsive, and stable. A little slow to start up, though. (Version 2.7) | |
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Scrivener | Feb 17 2007 |
Just wrote a book chapter for a medical text using scrivener. Awesome. The writing tool I've finally been looking for! I write scientific articles. Try it out, you'll love it. (Version 1.0) | |
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Bookends | Feb 17 2007 |
NEURON Great software. Very mac-like, tons of features, robust, fast and flexible, and an EXTREMELY responsive and helpful developer. Totally ditched EndNote. Absolutely no use for it. Would love it if it integrated a little better with Nisus, but it is well integrated with Word, and apparently Mellel. Cons: Interface could use a little polishing. I haven't found any significant problems except when I created a unique format the code didn't work exactly as predicted, but was able to do a workaround. Could be my fault, though. (Version 9.1) | |
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