I do this with Bookends too.
Thankfully, most ref managers support BibTeX export.
Which one does the best job at completing book titles (from online sources). Let’s say I just enter the ISBN. Then the software pulls author, full title, year, publisher and so on. Or I have incomplete records because I was lazy, and there`s just title and author. Been trying some solutions, but I’d like to hear which one you consider really good for the job.
I use the Alfred workflow Reference Importer with keyword book - I normally use author or title but just tried a couple of ISBN searches & it works fine for nearly all (the only one I couldn’t find was an obscure publication by an Ethiopian NGO). The workflow is set up to import to BibDesk directly but you can also capture the raw BibTeX to the clipboard. This could also be modified to update the currently selected item.
I use a script I wrote, Lookup Publishers , to fill in missing addresses in existing records, since Google Scholar refs. never include the location of publication. The script has a lot of lines like
else if thePublisher contains "Chicago" then set the value of field "address" of thePub to "Chicago"
which can easily be copied and customised to add publishers that might not be in the version as written.
I also use a couple of scripts that add Google Books and Amazon URLs to the selected item. Here’s the Google Books one:
–Add Google Book URL.scpt
–based on Book Locator Amazon.scpt by ahm@reed.edu
tell application "BibDesk"
set thePublications to the selection of document 1
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
repeat with thePub in thePublications
set theISBN to the value of field "ISBN" of thePub
if theISBN is not "" then
try
set theISBN to text 1 thru 13 of theISBN
set numISBN to theISBN as number
set theISBN to my ISBN13to10(theISBN)
on error
set theISBN to text 1 thru 10 of theISBN
end try
set theURL to "http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN" & theISBN & "&printsec=toc"
else
try
set theAuthor to the last name of the first author of thePub -- tends to make for better matches
on error
set theAuthor to the value of field "editor" of thePub
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ","
try -- to just get the last name of the first editor, otherwise just go for it
set theAuthor to the first text item of theAuthor
end try
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
end try
set theTitle to the value of field "title" of thePub
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ":" -- use short version of title, again, better matches
try
set theTitle to the first text item of theTitle
end try
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ";"
try
set theTitle to the first text item of theTitle
end try
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
set theTitle to my encode_URL_string(theTitle)
set theURL to "http://books.google.com/books?q=" & theTitle & "+" & theAuthor & "&btnG=Search+Books"
--old set theURL to "http://books.google.com/books?q=intitle:" & theTitle & "+inauthor:" & theAuthor
end if
try
add theURL to thePub
end try
end repeat
end tell -- Bibdesk
on ISBN13to10(theISBN)
set ISBNChkSum to 0
set theISBN to text 4 thru 12 of theISBN
set iISBN to 1
repeat while iISBN < 10
set kISBN to text iISBN thru iISBN of theISBN as number
set ISBNChkSum to ISBNChkSum + kISBN * (11 - iISBN)
set iISBN to iISBN + 1
end repeat
set ISBNLastDigit to 11 - ISBNChkSum mod 11
if ISBNLastDigit is 10 then
set ISBNLastDigit to "X"
end if
set theISBN10 to (theISBN & ISBNLastDigit) as text
end ISBN13to10
--Text handlers from Apple to encode the Search string
property allowed_URL_chars : (characters of "$-_.+!*'(),1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz")
on encode_URL_string(this_item)
set character_list to (characters of this_item)
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in character_list
set this_char to item i of character_list
if this_char is not in allowed_URL_chars then set item i of character_list to my encode_URL_char(this_char)
end repeat
return character_list as string
end encode_URL_string
property hex_list : (characters of "0123456789ABCDEF")
on encode_URL_char(this_char)
set ASCII_num to (ASCII number this_char)
set x to item ((ASCII_num div 16) + 1) of hex_list
set y to item ((ASCII_num mod 16) + 1) of hex_list
return ("%" & x & y) as string
end encode_URL_char
Aha - here is the original source:
2 Likes
The types of documents that I produce are heavy in science/engineering content, embedded figures, and math equations. I see in the Forums that some aspects of what I depend on with LaTeX are not strong in Mellel.
http://forum.mellel.com/search.php?keywords=latex
The indexing and bibliography features of Mellel are appealing.
In the end, Mellel appears not to be competitive with what I can get using LaTeX. I have a higher interest in Manuscripts. But, by this point, I end up just writing the LaTeX document myself.
–
JJW
I had high hopes for Manuscripts, even paid for it when it was unusable, but am not holding my breath.
I tried Mellel as it was recommended by the Bookends guy, but it (Mellel) came up short.
Texpad is the winner for me. Especially now that Markdown is supported.
Someday, since it supports its own local install, I may return to Texpad but do so on a shiny new iPad Pro (I hear faint strains of “All I Want for Christmas …” in the background for some reason).
–
JJW
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Is there any truth to this? I keep hearing and seeing this, but there has been nothing delivered.
They’ve been working on it for a while, but it keeps getting delayed. Until it actually appears I’m not going to be sure about the timeline.
I got an invitation to access a beta of the Web version of Papers/Readcube. I cannot comment on the updates because I have no interest in running a Web version.
–
JJW
Yeah, I tried the beta “web” version of Papers/Readcube and I’m not looking forward to it either. Moreover, I am afraid they might discontinue the desktop version!
It‘s also worth noting that their upcoming "desktop“ version really seems to be a rewrite of their ReadCube product, based on cross-platform web technologies and styled to look like a Papers 3 successor. Depending on implementation, the user experience may differ quite a bit from a native Mac application where it’s easier to closely follow system conventions and to offer good system integration (such as scripting support).
In another thread, I‘ve mentioned a script that I‘ve written to help users migrate from Papers 3 to Bookends.
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FYI I just saw this review for Kudos ($4.99) and thought it was a very interesting utility for saving articles and references.
It seems very useful for journalists who deal with digital info, but for researchers who read loads of pdfs, I doubt it can be used as a reference manager.
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It does not claim to be a manager. It’s designed to pull info, with links and references, and share it in various formats including Markdown.
I just use Roam for this now, with one of the highlighter plugins.
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Interesting find, kudos. Thanks for suggesting it – it’s sitting in the menu bar and will get a good trial.
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THIS! I had to briefly use Endnote on a project and it was very buggy and missing many features on the Mac version. I long used Mendeley, but a few years ago switched to Zotero. Functionally, they are very similar, but Zotero is more flexible and, at the time, was the best way to integrate with my writing workflow using Scrivener and Pandoc. I will say switching reference managers is a giant pain and it’s very easy to end up with meta-data issues in migrating over. So, unless you’re willing to commit considerable time and energy to developing a new workflow, it’s probably not worth the effort switching without a good reason.
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EndNote is hideous, I only use it when forced to. In Aus some of the grant awarding sites (eg NHMRC) expect you to keep your profile updated and the only way to upload references is via endnote 
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I think some people think that software is just obtuse and buggy, and you’re going to lose work, and that’s just how it is. Probably learned from past experiences with Microsoft products (Word in particular).
When I started my PhD I began with Endnote, as that is what is provided, and what the library has courses on. The warning bells went off early, fortunately, and I wound up with Bookends.
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