EndNote 8 Released

adamrao

Saw this on MacMinute... knew some of you would be interested...



Thomson ResearchSoft ships EndNote 8 for Mac OS X

November 30 - 09:02 EST__ Thomson ResearchSoft today announced the availability of EndNote 8 for Mac OS X , the latest version of the company's bibliographic management software. EndNote 8 offers Unicode support for any language, unlimited library size, new reference types and fields, and Microsoft Word 2004 compatibility. EndNote 8 is priced at US$239.95.



http://www.endnote.com/ENMac.asp



Supports Word 2004 now. Nice.

adamrao

Quote:

Originally posted by segovius

239.95

Yeah, and that's for the download-only version. If you want it in the box, it'll cost you $300. Fun.

rok

Quote:

Originally posted by adamrao

Yeah, and that's for the download-only version. If you want it in the box, it'll cost you $300. Fun.

but i bet a lot of students and professors, like my wife, will be the most interested. for them, it's just $99 (from journeyed.com)

kickaha

Yup, but BibDesk is free. It's a nice GUI front end to the BibTeX tool suite.

towel

Quote:

Originally posted by Kickaha

Yup, but BibDesk is free. It's a nice GUI front end to the BibTeX tool suite.

Many journals request EndNote libraries. :P And CWYW is nice, although I'd much rather do it in TextEdit than Word.

kickaha

Quote:

Originally posted by Towel

Many journals request EndNote libraries. :P And CWYW is nice, although I'd much rather do it in TextEdit than Word.

I've gotta ask - what field(s)? In CompSci, they want camera-ready PDFs... they can pull out the biblio information from it directly. Or, you can submit a BibTeX file.



I've only seen one journal that *allowed* a Word document for submission, and none that required it, for instance.



CWYW? Cite Where/What You Want? BibDesk lets you drag and drop a bibliography item from its window and drop it into any editor, where it will produce the citation text that you want, such as in my case, a LaTeX \\cite{} reference. Silly stupid fast and easy. BibDesk + TeXShop makes producing amazingly nice documents of any length really slick and easy, IMO. I've used it for short papers (<2 pgs) and my dissertation (314pgs and counting), and it scales perfectly, for $0.



But I guess if you're stuck with Word, then EndNote is the only life preserver you've got. Yay version 8!

adamrao

Perhaps I'm just a little out of the loop here, but could you explain a bit further what you are talking about? I'm currently a student and use Word for EVERYTHING academic related. When I am preparing my dissertation, will Word not be good enough? Will I require EndNote?



I'm confused.

kickaha

For *my* dissertation, Word would be utterly ridiculous. The equations I have are complex, many, and pervasive. The figures are likewise. The layout has highly specific requirements for the Graduate School to accept it, and I simply can't imagine going through the contortions that Word would require. (I've done *short* papers with Word where trying to get the layout right took longer than writing the content... never again.)



EndNote is, as you may have guessed, a bibliographic database. Well, it's not the only one. The free LaTeX typesetting system has BibTeX, which is a flat-file type of same. BibDesk is a free GUI that allows easy editing and management of BibTeX files. Basically, it's EndNote Lite, for LaTeX instead of Word. LaTeX is just plain text files that have your content and commands - it is utterly *not* WYSIWYG... but such GUI editors do exist. I use TeXShop, which while not WYSIWYG, is a rich editor for producing LaTeX documents. It then fires off the latex tool in the background, and shows you the resultant PDF in seconds. Oh, and it's free too.



If you're doing technical documents, LaTeX and Frame are the two tools of choice. LaTeX is free, and runs on many systems, Frame is $$$ and doesn't, but it *is* extremely nice.



Bottom line: it would depend what your dissertation is in. English Lit? Word would probably be fine. Physics? CompSci? Electrical engineering? Math? LaTeX, hands down.

amorya

I use LaTeX specifically because of BibTeX. My essays don't use (many) equations, but having it cite stuff for me is great! When I download a journal article, I type the info into BibDesk, then print it off and scribble the cite key on the corner. Then when I'm writing, I can have the bibliography built as I go, without having to come back and sort it afterwards.



I looked into endnote, and it looked about as useful - but at a much greater cost.



Amorya

towel

Quote:

Originally posted by Kickaha

I've gotta ask - what field(s)?

Biomed. Word-Endnote is the most common format for submission of article text. The open-access journals actually give a discount on submission charges if you use EndNote, because they don't have to edit your references, and it's much easier to reformat them in the text and biblio. CWYW = Cite While You Write. EndNote can automagically insert a proper reference object if you type a runt reference. I don't keep that many authors in my head, though, so I usually resort to "Insert selected reference".



My question about BibDesk is whether it treats references as dynamic objects like EndNote does. You can globally change the format of your text references ([23] to [Baker et al.], for example) as well as the format of your biblio, just by changing the preferences for that particular Word document. And those preferences are in the form of journal-specific formats, so you don't need to format everything yourself, just pick "Cell". And when the paper gets rejected from Cell, change to "Mol Cell Biol". Very nice. EndNote does other nice things, like automagically keeping your text references in order (if you add a new reference between [20] and [21], it renumbers everything in the text and the biblio).



Can BibDesk do that sort of dynamic stuff? And, can it download complete references from NLM/PubMed, or do you need to type everything in yourself? EndNote is a bit of a pain (bad Carbon port, anyone?), but the dynamic features and the relative ease of downloading make it seriously worthwhile for papers with more than a handful of references.

kickaha

BibDesk doesn't do any of that... BibTeX in the LaTeX system does all of that, and more.



Well, except downloading refs from online sources, but every online source I've seen that I need offers them in BibTeX format, and those text snippets can be dragged and dropped into BibDesk, which then fills out the entry appropriately.



I'm stunned that anyone would think auto-numbering was unusual or special in a biblio system, but I guess I'm pretty spoiled by LaTeX. And yes, styles are changeable with simple prefs changes in the document. Heck, most of the time I just get the style file for the journal I'm submitting to, and all I have to change is one line in the paper, and *everything* is altered to fit that journal - columns, font, spacing, bibliograph style, citation style, copyright info block, author contact info, kerning, you name it. It's about as automatic as you can get.



Did I mention free?



Just checked - I have over 650 entries in my BibTeX database at the moment for my dissertation, and 192 references actually cited in the document. I've never had to think about numbering, placement, formatting, or anything, not once. Not too shabby.

adamrao

I'm studying music, so it would seem that the lack of equations in my future dissertation would make the LaTeX system less worthwhile. I'm interested in why you consider Word to be difficult in layout for a document. I always thought I simply didn't understand it well enough, but is it just bad to begin with?



What are professional writers using software-wise for their various genres?



This topic really interests me...

kickaha

Actually, there are several LaTeX packages that do music notation. One even can translate it to a MIDI file. No joke.



If you're doing 'just words', Word is fine.



But then, so is TextEdit.



When you start getting into precise layout, it quickly becomes a pain in the ass - I've had a Word document toss figures three pages over after changing a single word, with no way of fixing it short of nailing the figure into one specific location - which you then have to manually fix if you say, delete a paragraph. It's insane.



LaTeX isn't perfect, (the learning curve is non-trivial, since you have to type in all the commands you'd normally select from menus - but TeXShop offers the menus. Select, and the proper LaTeX text command is inserted.) but it offers intelligent figure placement, killer equations (and music notation ), automatic bibliography generation from a database, automatic table of contents, index, list of figures, etc, etc, etc...



I'll take it over Word's asinine non-consistent behaviour any day. Also, I can share that text file with anyone on any platform, and they can edit it and reproduce the finished PDF themselves if necessary.



Right now (this minute) I'm dealing with an idiotic situation where a Word document was sent to me with equations I need to double-check... but the typist used MathType to do the equations under Windows. Can I *see* the equations, much less *edit* them? Hell no. So they printed out the 100pg document, and then scanned it in manually to produce a PDF. No, they don't have Acrobat Distiller. Meanwhile, I can produce PDFs from LaTeX with a single button click.



Insanity.

adamrao

Ok... so maybe you've sold me on this idea.



What do I need and where can I get it?

kickaha

TeXShop (including links to the latex installers): http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/texshop.html



BibDesk: http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/



LilyPond (the music LaTeX tool): http://lilypond.org/web/



That should keep you busy for a few weeks...



Warning - you'll want a LaTeX book. Really. It's... dense. (Did I mention the initial learning curve?) I recommend _The LaTeX Companion_ by Goossens. Be sure to get the latest edition. TeXShop helps a *lot* though. Feel free to PM me with any Qs.

midwinter

My dissertation ~300 pages was begun in AppleWorks and finished in Word. The journals to which I submit essays for publication ask almost *exclusively* for Word files on disk along with hard copies.



I am seriously considering Endnote, even though I'm doing my damndest to move over to Nisus Writer for everything.

kickaha

On *disk*? *HARD COPIES*?!?



What the heck kind of journals are these, Steam Engine Monthly???



Sheesh.



I just submit pre-formatted PDFs via a webform, and I'm done. LaTeX is what makes the formatting easy.

carson o'genic

I've been an EndNote user since version 3, I beleive. I've sold lots of folks on the program, but I've been very unhappy with the application since it got bought out by ISI. I have version 7 and it is damm buggy. It is the only app I have that will cause OSX to crash requiring a re-boot. I've contacted tech help, but their answer has been that the issues are all known bugs. That was about a year ago.



Examples include havinging an open window linked to the PubMed data base that freezes up to the point that not even force quit will respond. I turn CWYW off since it will leave me with a spinning beach ball far too often. If you copy a reference that you have downloaded over to your library and then click on it to open it up you have a 50% chance of a lock up. This is what tech help had to say on that last issue:



"There is a known issue where certain searches in Pubmed are causing slowness in Endnote. When you open a record after a certain Pubmed search it can take a very long time before the record opens. If you force quit Endnote and start Endnote up again, the problem should go away.



Not all searches in Pubmed seem to cause this slowness, but if you come across this again, here are some general workarounds:



1. After you search Pubmed and get your results, do not open any references. Copy them to your library and then quit Endnote. Start Endnote again and you should be able to open those records without any slowness.



2. You can also use the alternate method of getting Pubmed references into Endnote, which involves searching the Pubmed website, saving your search results to a text file, and then importing that text file into Endnote.



This issue has been reported to development, but unfortunately there is no fix at the moment, except for the above workarounds."



The bottom line is that the new company want to push out new versions without fixing to current version and it stinks!

carson o'genic

Quote:

Originally posted by midwinter

My dissertation ~300 pages was begun in AppleWorks and finished in Word. The journals to which I submit essays for publication ask almost *exclusively* for Word files on disk along with hard copies.



I am seriously considering Endnote, even though I'm doing my damndest to move over to Nisus Writer for everything.

I don't think there is a problem using Endnote in Nisus. You'll miss out on the CWYW function (which I turn off because it's screwy anyway). Maybe some of the pre-formated word files they provide don't work well either-again no big deal.



My guess is all you have to do is save the nisus file with the endnotes that you have pasted in. Then open the file in EndNote as per instructions and format. This is how EndNote used to work with all word processors. It works fine and is just a little more cumbersome than with MS Word.



edit:



Just saw this at the endnote site:



"You can also use the "RTF Document Scan" feature in EndNote version 7 to scan and format RTF documents (rich text format) produced by these and many other word processors including AppleWorks, ClarisWorks, FrameMaker (RTF only, not MIF files), Nisus, OpenOffice, StarOffice, and others."

midwinter

Quote:

Originally posted by Carson O'Genic

I don't think there is a problem using Endnote in Nisus. You'll miss out on the CWYW function (which I turn off because it's screwy anyway). Maybe some of the pre-formated word files they provide don't work well either-again no big deal.



My guess is all you have to do is save the nisus file with the endnotes that you have pasted in. Then open the file in EndNote as per instructions and format. This is how EndNote used to work with all word processors. It works fine and is just a little more cumbersome than with MS Word.



edit:



Just saw this at the endnote site:



"You can also use the "RTF Document Scan" feature in EndNote version 7 to scan and format RTF documents (rich text format) produced by these and many other word processors including AppleWorks, ClarisWorks, FrameMaker (RTF only, not MIF files), Nisus, OpenOffice, StarOffice, and others."

That sounds great! I don't know what any of it means (I have never used endnote or anything like it), but it sounds like it's a good thing.

carson o'genic

Quite simply, Endnote is great if you are writing articles/manuscripts/a thesis that requires a long list of references. Endnote is one of those programs that computers were invented for. It takes the hassle out of adding and subtracting references, and getting all those references in the right order and formatted correctly. Since most journal articles are listed on an online data base now, you can just download the info and skip the whole part of entering the reference data into your endnote library to begin with.



I think EndNote is great, but I'm also really pissed with the new owners (which seem to have a monopoly on citation software). The problem i think is that it is hard to find many significant new features to add to this application. Keeping up with word processors and operating systems is the main thing, but that alone doesn't keep the gravy train running. Quite simply, version 7 was in dire need of an update to make it work the way it was advertised. Howevver, they spent their effort on version 8 for Windows (which came out months ago) and now version 8 for Mac. I will not pay $99 for a so-so upgrade to hope that it fixes bugs in the last version.