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Citation Managers: Compare Citation Managers

This guide features citation managers Zotero and Mendeley. We also share information about how to move references from platform to platform.

Compare Zotero and Mendeley

What sets Zotero apart:

  • Great at gathering sources right from your browser window
  • Collects attached audio and video files as well as PDFs, text files, and website snapshots
  • Lets you create multiple private groups to share citations and files with collaborators for free (Mendeley allows one free group)
  • Offers bookmarklets for saving sources from mobile phones/tablets

What sets Mendeley apart: 

  • Allows you to highlight and annotate PDFs
  • Watches designated folders on your computer to import new sources
  • Provides its own database for discovering new research and makes personalized suggestions
  • Offers a great social network for connecting with other researchers and promoting your own work
  • Offers apps that let you read and annotate PDFs on your mobile phone/tablet 

Comparison Handout

Sync Mendeley with Zotero

Want to benefit from the features of both Zotero and Mendeley? You can actually set Mendeley up to automatically import any citations and files you add to Zotero. There are a couple ways to do this.

You can import at set up:

 

 

 

 

 

To set importing up later, just open Preferences from the Mendeley Desktop menu.

 

Then, click on the tab for Zotero and follow the instructions to enable continuous import.