Foxit Reader Vs Pdf Xchange Viewer' title='Foxit Reader Vs Pdf Xchange Viewer' />Mendeley vs. Zotero vs. Docear Docear. Comprehensive Comparison of Reference Managers Mendeley vs. Zotero vs. Docear. Which one is the best reference management software Thats a question any student or researcher should think about quite carefully, because choosing the best reference manager may save lots of time and increase the quality of your work significantly. So, which reference manager is best Zotero Mendeley Docear The answer is It depends, because different people have different needs. Actually, there is no such thing as the best reference manager but only the reference manager that is best for you even though some developers seem to believe that their tool is the only truly perfect one. Foxit Reader Vs Pdf Xchange Viewer' title='Foxit Reader Vs Pdf Xchange Viewer' />In this Blog post, we compare Zotero, Mendeley, and Docear and we hope that the comparison helps you to decide which of the reference managers is best for you. Of course, there are many other reference managers. Hopefully, we can include them in the comparison some day, but for now we only have time to compare the three. We really tried to do a fair comparison, based on a list of criteria that we consider important for reference management software. Of course, the criteria are subjectively selected, as are all criteria by all reviewers, and you might not agree with all of them. However, even if you disagree with our evaluation, you might find at least some new and interesting aspects as to evaluate reference management tools. You are very welcome to share your constructive criticism in the comments, as well as links to other reviews. In addition, it should be obvious that we the developers of Docear are somewhat biased. Foxit Reader Vs Pdf Xchange Viewer' title='Foxit Reader Vs Pdf Xchange Viewer' />Android has a builtin PDF viewer, as do iPhones and iPads. While Adobe Reader is available for all of these OSs, there isnt really a need to download and use it. Fixes for 64bit Adobe Reader preview handler and thumbnails. December 2014 A new, improved version is coming soon Update 02May2011 New version of the thumbnail. Please note that the developers of all three tools constantly improve their tools and add new features. Therefore, the table might be not perfectly uptodate. However, this comparison is most certainly more objective than those that Mendeley and other reference managers did . Please note that we only compared about 5. Of course, a more comprehensive list of features and a more sophisticated rating scheme would have been nice, but this would have been too time consuming. So, consider this review as a rough guideline. If you feel that one of the mentioned features is particularly important to you, install the tools yourself, compare the features, and share your insights in the commentsMost importantly, please let us know when something we wrote is not correct. All reviewed reference tools offer lots of functions, and it might be that we missed one during our review. Please note that the developers of all three tools constantly improve their tools and add new features. Therefore, the table might be not perfectly up to date. In addition, its difficult to rate a particular functionality with only one out of three possible ratings yes no partly. Therefore, we highly suggest to read the detailed review, which explains the rationale behind the ratings. The  table above provides an overview of how Zotero, Mendeley, and Docear support you in various tasks, how open and free they are, etc. Details on the features and ratings are provided in the following sections. As already mentioned, if you notice a mistake in the evaluation e. Overview. If you dont want to read a lot, just jump to the summary. We believe that a reference manager should offer more features than simple reference management. Viewer3(714).png' alt='Foxit Reader Vs Pdf Xchange Viewer' title='Foxit Reader Vs Pdf Xchange Viewer' />It should support you in 1 finding literature, 2 organizing and annotating literature, 3 drafting your papers, theses, books, assignments, etc., 4 managing your references of course, and 5 writing your papers, theses, etc. Additionally, many but not all students and researchers might be interested in 6 socializing and collaboration, 7 note, task, and general information management, and 8 file management. PDFXChange Viewer PDF. My Assistive Technology Toolbox. I use a wide variety of technologies in my practice both hightech and lowtech too numerous to mention here. The very best free 2015 portable programs hand selected by the Gizmos Freeware editors. You dont need to spend a cent on apps when there are so many freebies. Finally, we think it is important that a reference manager 9 is available for the major operating systems, 1. What makes a bad reference manager. Detailed Comparison. Operating Systems Languages. Obviously, a reference manager must be available for your favorite operating system but its also important that a reference manager is available for as many operating systems as possible, in general. For instance, when you want to cooperate with another researcher, cooperation will be much easier when your collaborator is using the same reference manager as you are. Therefore, the more operating systems a reference manager is available for, the higher the chance that potential collaborators will be able to use your favorite reference manager. Wrath James White Epub. In addition, if you are planning a career in academia, you might be required by your employer to use a certain operating system. If your reference manager isnt available for that system you will most likely spend quite a bit of time migrating to another one. To prevent that hassle, choose a reference manager that supports as many platforms as possible. Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X are supported by Zotero, Mendeley, and Docear. A web version is offered only by Zotero and Mendeley. However, Docear offers a prototype web version that for some data gives you a version history, i. Also a mobile version is only offered by Zotero and Mendeley Zotero does not offer a mobile version itself but there are good third party applications. A multilingual version may be important for non English speakers. Mendeleys website and software are available in English only. Docear offers an English only website, English and German support, and the software itself is mostly available in different languages. Zotero offers a multilingual user interface and most help pages on Zoteros website are also translated into different languages. Information Management Approach. Eventually, reference management is all about structuring and finding information, and there are various approaches in which to do this. For instance, with tables you sort references by author name or title with folders or social tags you structure and browse your references and a search function helps to find reference when e. There is no best approach to manage your information. All approaches have their pros and cons. However, you should be aware of the different approaches and ideally you should try them out before deciding which reference manager is most suitable for you. A three or four section user interface is what most reference managers offer, and so do Zotero and Mendeley. Mendeleys main component is a table showing all your documents below screenshot, middle. The second component left lets you create categories to which you add your documents. In the third section, notes and annotations for your documents are displayed. You can create one global note per document and Mendeley also shows annotations you created directly in your PDF files with Mendeleys internal PDF editor. Zoteros user interface is quite similar to Mendeley, yet you can create several global notes but wont be able to see the annotations you made directly in PDF files. In addition, PDFs are shown directly in your browser  Zotero is a Fire. Fox plug in but there is also a stand alone version and your notes will also show up in the main table. If you install the add on Zotfile, Zotero can also import PDF annotations, which should give you basically the same features as Mendeley. Docear also offers a classic three section user interface showing your references in a table and sorted by categories, allowing you to create one global note per document. Docears three section user interface is not as comfortable and neat as the one of Mendeley and Zotero.