Bookends

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. Bookends and Sente... 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... Stability: - 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. Searching: - 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. Speed: 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. Pdfs: 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. Custom fields: Both allow you make and view notes etc very easily. Sending to colleagues: Bookends 'email ref' works reliably and attaches any pdfs to your email. Helpful for finding and sending stuff to colleagues. Technical support: 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. Working with Word: 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. Import/Export: 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. OVERALL: (If anyone cares) 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.

Great app. Use it with my Word docs and works flawlessly. Been around forever.

Nice program!

Been using for many years, usually with Nisus, but sometimes Word and Mellel. It has never let me down. I've tried others and nothing else works as well. Constantly updated. Support is fantastic.

Microsoft released a major rewrite of Word, which broke compatibility with Endnote and Bookends. Bookends had a workaround available to users in hours, and has been updated (V13.0.5, and a backport for V12 users too!) now to fix this . Endnote? Forces users to run beta software and no ETA when an official fix will come. This just gives you a flavour of the difference in support you will receive with both pieces of software (apart from the fact Bookends is far more powerful than Endnote, and far cheaper).

I'm using Bookends for more than 10 years. Since then, the developper has stayed focused on its software with regular updates and the support is just great. Clearly one of my best choice of software.

Best reference manager ever.

I have tried all of them. I like Zotero. I also use BibDesk and Jabref for my latex references. I have been user of Sente for many years. I have also used Papers for a while. But, Bookends stands as the richest and most reliable of all. I love the Global tools that help me to manipulate my references.
The automatic data extraction has gone from DOI to Justor and recently even to iSBN. You don't have to go and search for reference data from Google Scholar. It magically picks the data from the PDF and autfills it.

Well, probably the best supported, and as a result, flexible, reference managers on the Mac just received a significant update. I purchased it immediately, with a fair amount of relief. Relief since Bookends is easily the most frequently updated applications of all my Mac apps, and I had been wanting to pay again, as appreciation for all the work that is put in to both the Mac (and iOS companion) application. If you are looking for a reference manager, across iOS and macOS, look no further. The others might be bigger, but how many of them frequently pose a question in their forums asking how many would support a user-request change, and then implement that change within weeks, if not days? Bookends has been in existence since the very early days - and it shows, in a mature and powerful app that often is an example of "way more than what you expect under the hood"!

Actually I like what I see from this new version (13.0) thus far. I've always had a license for Bookends, but ended up gravitating towards Papers (so many years ago till the 2nd version started crashing), followed by Sente (till it stopped receiving regular updates a couple of years ago), and now Mendeley. However, now that people using Macs are having problems with Mendeley on HIgh Sierra (with no official support for 10.12 or 10.13), I've begun revisiting Bookends. I always had problems with how Bookends managed and viewed PDFs, which is where Sente and Mendeley excelled (full screen, tabbed views, easy to read, simple and straightforward UI, etc).

This new version of Bookends (along with its reputation of always being updated with stellar support) has me hopeful. I don't have a license for this new version, but I'm going to spend the better part of the next 30 days or so experimenting with it to see how it goes. In the end, I'm not so sure if there really is any viable alternatives on the Mac right now (and don't talk to me about Endnote). Unless Mendeley gets updated or Readcube finally puts it together, I'm going to seriously look at Bookends and I like what I see thus far. We'll see after a month or so.

Bookends is overall the best reference manager for macOS. The major advantage lies in the fact its database engine is the most flexible/accessible, allowing powerful group editing of the reference data. Bookends has been continuously developed for the Mac since 1984, and still receives regular updates. In V13 there have been major improvements to the way you can view and annotate PDFs. For example, there is a sticky tab bar for multiple reference PDFs so you can quickly add several PDFs then switch between them effortlessly, while being able to view the annotations note stream (metadata about your PDF annotations are automagically extracted into the main database for you). Full screen is now contextual, if you are editing reference lists, it opens into the reference list, if you have a PDF panel open, it opens into the PDF. The automated Pubmed search has been improved, and it greatly enhances the speed at which we can scan through new potentially interesting references. There are many more interesting features and Bookends really offers the best mix of detailed reference management, search interface, PDF handling, flexible bibliography generation and more.