Papers

I agree with everybody that had been disappointed by all the bugs of Papers 2. Because of that I wouldn't recommend people from upgrading to 3. For the following reasons: - They never fix things properly. - They still try all they can to lock you into their software: - PDF annotation not viewable outside the software. - Now PDFs are stored with MP3 on iPod type of cryptic names and folders, making it impossible for you to manually navigate your PDF library any more. - Also the library is a single package file, like iPhoto library. Say goodbye for using other apps to access the folder structure! The Papers 3 trial made me realize they are trying even more lock-in, and still haven't implemented PDF annotation that is universal to other apps. To sync with iPad, you have BUY again Papers 3 on iPad/iPhone. This totally sucks because the old version cannot do the sync properly at all. So they burned us, and want us to pay again for sync that only works with Dropbox. I would recommend everybody finding an alternative.

Used to be so good, papers1 loved it, papers2 added some useful functions, like "copy settings", awesome!, abandoned some others, like simply hit space bar for full few... timesaver. I want quick look as full screen!! Now: Papers 3… looks less colorful, less fun, - red flags turned black, purple folders turned grey... where are my buttons: mail, print … have to go through too many steps to just send a pdf, or print some. Where is the awesome "sound" when sending pdf by mail?? I have the feeling this turned into windows grey world... no fun! I want papers back!!!! Most important : why is it so much slower than papers 2 ???

Papers was recently acquired by Labtiva, Inc., based in Cambridge, MA and London. More importantly, the company is backed by Digital Science, a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, and is the developer of the app ReadCube. What this all means for Papers' users is unclear.

However, what is clear is that the bibliographic database/research software market is a mess. Good products, like Sente and Bookends, started out well but were never properly financed. Consequently researchers like myself have been in a difficult situation (left with incomplete and buggy software).

A big problem is that software designers do not understand the needs of power-researchers in terms of organizing (and reorganizing) their reference based data for multiple projects. Sente was excellent (but no longer supported) and Bookmarks powerful (but not fully modernized; needs a basic rebuild). That left Papers, which had lot's of promise not yet realized.

So now we are largely left with Labtiva and Mendeley - backed by good financing. Let's hope they are not obsessively focused on the Internet and do deliver the sort of functionality required by power researches. Connecting with other researchers is great ... but let's first make sure the software's core data management capabilities address the power data management needs of the individual researcher first alongside the usual basic bibliographic database management and reference generation functions.

Thank you.

PS: I work with about 11,000 references in a database built up over the past 10-years or more, a critical research tool. I have used End Note, Sente, Bookends at one time or another. I was about to consider a migration to Papers when I found out about the sale. Sente was a favorite, but it’s progress slowed and then stopped in recent years. Bookends has a lot of power, but needs a basic re-write and modernization to stamp out (nasty) bugs and make it easier to use. End Note I used in the 1990’s, and eventually dumped when it’s development seemed to freeze up.