The next two apps covered, Sente and Papers, are primarily academic reference managers. At first glance, they appear very similar:
- They both allow you to carry your entire academic library with you wherever you go
- They are specifically designed to search for, download, and manage your entire medical literature library.
- They both have desktop apps to which they sync that can be used to insert and manage references into academic works.
- They both offer the basic ability to annotate, mark up, and share academic papers using a variety of methods.
It should be noted that while both Sente and Papers can be used independently of their desktop counterparts, their utility is significantly enhanced by combining the two together. This allows changes to be synced from iPad to desktop and vice versa.
There are, however, crucial differences between these two powerful reference managers.
Sente:
- iTunes:
- Price: $19.99
Sente is designed as a powerful academic reference manager that can be used independently of the desktop version. Sente can be used to search for and download articles which are then stored locally in a library.
It certainly contains all the features which power users need such as:
- Multiple academic libraries which can be imported in multiple formats such as EndNote and BibTex
- Sente has the advantage as it is automatically syncs any updates, articles, annotations and changes over the air whenever an internet connection is present. Papers can sync wirelessly but it must be connected to the same wireless network as the desktop app
- Sente Target icons detect references on webpages in the embedded browser which is supported on a wide range of commonly used sites including Google Scholar, PubMed, Web Of Knowledge, JSTOR amongst many others
- Organization of references is accomplished using a combination of tags, statuses, ratings as well as the more traditional formats such as Author, Journal, Year and Type
- Basic PDF annotation tools such as highlighting, comments and basic shapes
However, Sente falls short in terms of actual file and folder management. It is not possible to import PDFs from external apps such as Dropbox or Mail.
As a result, casual users may find themselves frustrated at the inability to carry out basic operations such as importing/folder creation. Despite this, Sente is still an excellent powerful tool for managing medical literature and thus it deserves a place amongst these PDF management apps.
Summary:
Sente is a powerful feature filled app that offers a myriad of functions to manage an academic library. PDFs can be annotated and shared with colleagues although the best feature is the automatic syncing over the air which keeps Sente libraries in sync with each other effortlessly. There are a number of limitations, such as difficulties importing PDFs from other apps, which mean Sente will have the most utility to clinical researchers and academics alike.
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Thanks for this review – very interesting, and it will be helpful to me as we decide which PDF manager(s) to incorporate as export options in the next release of our PubMed search app (www.pubsavvy.com). A couple of observations – most users of medical literature need to manage citations as well as pdfs (to create bibliographic listings, etc). While Sente and Papers sound impressive, I’m not sure I’m seeing something yet that will replace my use of EndNote on the desktop (perhaps I am just being timid). I wonder when apps will come for Zotero and Mendeley…
Using Dropbox to manage PDF libraries will be tempting for a lot of people, but seems like it won’t work that well unless you have an ironclad naming convention to prevent storing lots of duplicates. Now when you download from journals, they all have their own file naming system, which is pretty annoying – especially if you don’t also have the standardized citation information attached to the pdf as metadata, or by bringing it in to a reference manager program that has the full citation. PubMed ID is nice for de-duping, and of course that’s what we use in PubSavvy since we are dealing only with that source, but once you get into managing articles from multiple sources you face a whole other host of issues. Looking forward to checking out your recommendations.
Great review! Exactly what I needed. I will certainly come back to your site…Many thanks!
Stephan
Thanks for this review – very interesting, and it will be helpful to me as we decide which PDF managers to incorporate as export options in the next release of our PubMed search app (PubSavvy). A couple of observations – most users of medical literature need to manage citations as well as pdfs (to create bibliographic listings, etc). While Sente and Papers sound impressive, I’m not sure I’m seeing something yet that will replace my use of EndNote on the desktop (perhaps I am just being timid). I wonder when apps will come for Zotero and Mendeley…
Using Dropbox to manage PDF libraries will be tempting for a lot of people, but seems like it won’t work that well unless you have an ironclad naming convention to prevent storing lots of duplicates. Now when you download from journals, they all have their own file naming system, which is pretty annoying – especially if you don’t also have the standardized citation information attached to the pdf as metadata, or by bringing it in to a reference manager program that has the full citation. PubMed ID is nice for de-duping, and of course that’s what we use in PubSavvy since we are dealing only with that source, but once you get into managing articles from multiple sources you face a whole other host of issues. Looking forward to checking out your recommendations.