Bookends for Mac

What this tool does for you

If you work on essays, theses or academic papers, managing citations and footnotes can eat up a lot of time. Bookends provides a full reference- and information-management workflow so you can focus on writing rather than formatting. It can scan your documents and insert cross-references automatically so that, in many cases, you can produce a completed manuscript with a correctly formatted bibliography with minimal manual effort.

Supported editors and how it integrates

Bookends plugs into common word processors by working with RTF-formatted files, including Microsoft Word, OpenOffice 3, Apple Pages, Mellel and Nisus Writer Pro. A built-in import/search assistant simplifies bringing in sources by pulling data from places like Google Scholar, Amazon and EndNote.

Teamwork and attachments

If your project involves coauthors, Bookends supports sharing reference libraries over the internet. You can attach files to references and let the app locate PDFs you want to link to specific citations, making it easier to keep the primary document and its source materials connected.

Known issues and limits

There is no NeoOffice compatibility. Occasionally, importing references can crash the app; rebuilding the database generally resolves the issue. Keep this in mind if you rely on frequent bulk imports.

Recent enhancements and fixes

• General bug repairs and stability improvements.
• Added the ability to import Zotero libraries along with their PDF attachments.
• Updated the JSTOR parsing logic inside the Bookends Browser to handle JSTOR’s site changes.
• CrossRef is now used as a metadata source when attaching PDFs in batches.
• An AppleEvent was introduced that returns the last-modified date for specified references.
• The AND/OR boolean preference for virtual groups now persists between app launches.
• When you select a folder in the groups list, references from that folder plus any subfolders are displayed.
• Autocomplete for the Paper field has been refined for better suggestion accuracy.