sbur
08-20-2002, 08:41 AM
I had the honor of beta testing the OS X version of Endnote 6 (http://www.endnote.com), and I just received my copy of the final product. I thought I would share some of my thoughts and experiences with you.
The interface looks and feels very much like Word v. X. The tool bar is similar and the "Theme" is aqua.
Endnote 6 has some new features. First, you can attach graphics with captions, PDF files, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, etc to references. You can also attach charts and equations. These attached graphics, figures, etc. can be formated into the document as well, though the formating is not very flexible (vide infra). The ability to attach (actually, its more of a link) pdf and other types of documents is very nice. If you have a lot of manuscripts, this could be helpful for keeping track of them. I know that the American Chemical Society uses the manuscript number to keep track of pdf files...unfortunately, this is not very helpful when browsing your collection of files on any given subject. This gives a way to attach the article directly to the reference.
It also offers publication templates. This, for me, is less than useless. Templates are available from the journal web sites anyway, and the layout the journal template uses is much better that the layout Endnote gives you. For those publishing in the humanities, where templates seem to be less available, it might be a very nice feature. Chemists, at least, will not use this.
The integration into Word v.X is very tight. Endnote has its own toolbar in word. This can be very handy. Unfortunately, it appears to be designed for use with Word, and for any other word processor, it is up to you to figure it out. Cite-while-you-write (cwyw) only works with Word. Fortunately for me, I must use Word for publication. Other document formats aren't accepted by the publishers. If you prefer AbiWord, OpenOffice, or even AppleWorks, you're SOL.
I am upgrading from Endnote v 4, so the CWYW feature is new to me. While it is helpful for general things, it is impossible to annotate an endnote with CWYW because the entire document is reformated at specified time intervals, and the annotation is lost. An example of a usefull annotation that I use frequently is "For interesting derivatives of compound 24, see:" (reference goes here). To do this, you must either wipe the EndNote markup from the document or turn off the CWYW feature. Since the mark up is usually removed before submission anyway, neither are bad, just inconvenient that you have to leave these details until the end.
The preferences that control output are very easy to use and are intuitive. This is much improved over older versions of EndNote. EndNote 4 started getting this right, and version 6 has further refined it. Unfortunately, images, charts, etc that you designate to be formated in to the word document have very few options. Endnote inserts a place holder / tagline into the manuscript for where the graphic should be placed. Upon formatting, EndNote builds a list of figures at the end of the document that consists of the image and the caption/legend associated with the image. While it is true that many journals require figures to be listed separately from the manuscript (to facilitate type setting), there are many that now request that images be embedded within the text to facilitate the peer review process. Endnote does not allow the images to be integrated into the text of the manuscript. The developers claim that this feature will be included in the next major upgrade.
Import has some small problems. For example, I can export the citations from the Tetrahedron web page for any given issue of that journal. Mozzilla saves the file as a unix text file. Endnote cannot recognize the unix text documents, so you must open the file with Word and resave it with a different file name. I think this is a growing-pain specific to OS X and Apple's attempt to do away with resource forks. Until developers make applications that do not require these resource forks, this will be a problem. It also attests to the fact that EndNote v6 is a "quick" port from the classic code rather than new code.
Overall, I give EndNote 6 good marks given that I use Word v.X and I have been using EndNote for many years now. I cannot comment on how it compares with other products like BookEnds.
EndNote is available now from most outlets including the Apple store, and it is listed by ISI (the company that developed the program) at $330 for non-academic purchase or $110 for academics. The apple store is listing it at $200, while Macmall is listing it at $165 for non-academic and $89 for students.
For those science people out there who have been waiting on the switch to OS X because EndNote wasn't available, the time has come...and they've even made it pretty easy.
The interface looks and feels very much like Word v. X. The tool bar is similar and the "Theme" is aqua.
Endnote 6 has some new features. First, you can attach graphics with captions, PDF files, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, etc to references. You can also attach charts and equations. These attached graphics, figures, etc. can be formated into the document as well, though the formating is not very flexible (vide infra). The ability to attach (actually, its more of a link) pdf and other types of documents is very nice. If you have a lot of manuscripts, this could be helpful for keeping track of them. I know that the American Chemical Society uses the manuscript number to keep track of pdf files...unfortunately, this is not very helpful when browsing your collection of files on any given subject. This gives a way to attach the article directly to the reference.
It also offers publication templates. This, for me, is less than useless. Templates are available from the journal web sites anyway, and the layout the journal template uses is much better that the layout Endnote gives you. For those publishing in the humanities, where templates seem to be less available, it might be a very nice feature. Chemists, at least, will not use this.
The integration into Word v.X is very tight. Endnote has its own toolbar in word. This can be very handy. Unfortunately, it appears to be designed for use with Word, and for any other word processor, it is up to you to figure it out. Cite-while-you-write (cwyw) only works with Word. Fortunately for me, I must use Word for publication. Other document formats aren't accepted by the publishers. If you prefer AbiWord, OpenOffice, or even AppleWorks, you're SOL.
I am upgrading from Endnote v 4, so the CWYW feature is new to me. While it is helpful for general things, it is impossible to annotate an endnote with CWYW because the entire document is reformated at specified time intervals, and the annotation is lost. An example of a usefull annotation that I use frequently is "For interesting derivatives of compound 24, see:" (reference goes here). To do this, you must either wipe the EndNote markup from the document or turn off the CWYW feature. Since the mark up is usually removed before submission anyway, neither are bad, just inconvenient that you have to leave these details until the end.
The preferences that control output are very easy to use and are intuitive. This is much improved over older versions of EndNote. EndNote 4 started getting this right, and version 6 has further refined it. Unfortunately, images, charts, etc that you designate to be formated in to the word document have very few options. Endnote inserts a place holder / tagline into the manuscript for where the graphic should be placed. Upon formatting, EndNote builds a list of figures at the end of the document that consists of the image and the caption/legend associated with the image. While it is true that many journals require figures to be listed separately from the manuscript (to facilitate type setting), there are many that now request that images be embedded within the text to facilitate the peer review process. Endnote does not allow the images to be integrated into the text of the manuscript. The developers claim that this feature will be included in the next major upgrade.
Import has some small problems. For example, I can export the citations from the Tetrahedron web page for any given issue of that journal. Mozzilla saves the file as a unix text file. Endnote cannot recognize the unix text documents, so you must open the file with Word and resave it with a different file name. I think this is a growing-pain specific to OS X and Apple's attempt to do away with resource forks. Until developers make applications that do not require these resource forks, this will be a problem. It also attests to the fact that EndNote v6 is a "quick" port from the classic code rather than new code.
Overall, I give EndNote 6 good marks given that I use Word v.X and I have been using EndNote for many years now. I cannot comment on how it compares with other products like BookEnds.
EndNote is available now from most outlets including the Apple store, and it is listed by ISI (the company that developed the program) at $330 for non-academic purchase or $110 for academics. The apple store is listing it at $200, while Macmall is listing it at $165 for non-academic and $89 for students.
For those science people out there who have been waiting on the switch to OS X because EndNote wasn't available, the time has come...and they've even made it pretty easy.