Skip to Main Content
Florida Tech Evans Library Logo

Mendeley

Tips and instructions on getting started using the Mendeley citation management software.

What is Mendeley?

 

 Mendeley is a citation management tool that helps you manage, share, read, annotate, and cite your research papers. It is also helps you manage your papers online, collaborate with other researchers, and discover research articles, trends and statistics.

With Mendeley you can:

  • collect & organize citations, PDFs, and other documents from files, databases, and web.
  • automatically extract all relevant information (title, journal, authors, keywords) and organize them your way.
  • read, annotate, and highlight your PDFs on any device.
  • generate/insert citations and bibliographies in Word, OpenOffice, LaTex.
  • create a searchable library.
  • discover articles in your field.
  • share your research with others.
  • synch across multiple computers and devices (desktop, web and mobile devices).
  • collaborate with private groups, public groups and the built-in Mendeley social network

Mendeley has both a desktop and an online component.

How to get a Mendeley Account

Mendeley has both a desktop and an online component.  To get the most out of Mendeley, it's best to use both. To start using Mendeley you will need to sign up for a free account  on Mendeley.com, and download the desktop application. 

Create an account:

Go to www.mendeley.com/features  and click the Create Account button to create a free  account. .

 

Once you have your account set up, you can edit your profile to share additional details about yourself with colleagues you connect to through Mendeley.  In your profile, you can also mark publications in your library for which you are the author, and Mendeley will track page view, reader and download statistics on those articles for you.

 

Mendeley Overview/Support

Tips for Using Mendeley

  • All PDFs must be kept in a folder on each device that you use Mendeley on, in order for the program to work properly.  This folder can be on your desktop, in My Documents, or in share space.  If you work on more than one computer, these folders will not contain the same files; each device will have the PDFs that you added to your library from that computer.
  • You need to use the desktop version of Mendeley in order to insert citations & create bibliographies in documents.
  • To create a bibliography in your document, you first need to place your cursor where you want the bibliography to go (in most cases, at the end of the document), then click the icon.  If you forget, your bibliography will appear wherever your cursor was last (in the middle of your document, for example).  If this happens, just delete it & add it in the correct place.

Mendeley Glossary

Mendeley Desktop : Mendeley Desktop is the downloaded part of the software installed onto your computer. Download Mendeley Desktop if you haven't already.

Mendeley Web : This is the Mendeley website where you can access the web version of your library, edit your profile and search for papers, groups or people.

Sync : The process of synchronizing your Mendeley data across devices.

Web Importer : The browser bookmarklet that lets you quickly import documents from anywhere on the web.

Citation Plugin : A plugin you can install that allows you to create and format your citations and bibliography according to your chosen style.