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Citation and reference management — collect, organize, search bibliographic information.

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Absolutely Free

JabRef overview

JabRef is an open-source, cross-platform citation and reference management tool.

Stay on top of your literature: JabRef helps you to collect and organize sources, find the paper you need and discover the latest research.

Features:
Collect
  • Search across many online scientific catalogues like CiteSeer, CrossRef, Google Scholar, IEEEXplore, INSPIRE-HEP, Medline PubMed, MathSciNet, Springer, arXiv, and zbMATH
  • Import options for over 15 reference formats
  • Easily retrieve and link full-text articles
  • Fetch complete bibliographic information based on ISBN, DOI, PubMed-ID and arXiv-ID
  • Extract metadata from PDFs
  • Import new references directly from the browser with one click using the official browser extension for Firefox, Chrome, Edge and Vivaldi
Organize
  • Group your research into hierarchical collections and organize research items based on keywords/tags, search terms or your manual assignments
  • Advanced search and filter features
  • Complete and fix bibliographic data by comparing with curated online catalogs such as Google Scholar, Springer or MathSciNet
  • Customizable citation key generator
  • Customize and add new metadata fields or reference types
  • Find and merge duplicates
  • Attach related documents: 20 different kinds of documents supported out of the box, completely customizable and extendable
  • Automatically rename and move associated documents according to customizable rules
  • Keep track of what you read: ranking, priority, printed, quality-assured
Cite
  • Native BibTeX and Biblatex support
  • Cite-as-you-write functionality for external applications such as Emacs, Kile, LyX, Texmaker, TeXstudio, Vim and WinEdt.
  • Format references using one of thousands of built-in citation styles or create your own style
  • Support for Word and LibreOffice/OpenOffice for inserting and formatting citations
Share
  • Many built-in export options or create your export format
  • Library is saved as a simple text file, and thus it is easy to share with others via Dropbox and is version-control friendly
  • Work in a team: sync the contents of your library via a SQL database

What’s new in version 5.13

Updated on Apr 02 2024

Added
  • We converted the "Custom API key" list to a table to be more accessible. #10926
  • We added a "refresh" button for the LaTeX citations tab in the entry editor. #10584
  • We added the possibility to show the BibTeX source in the web search import screen. #560
  • We added a fetcher for ISIDORE, simply paste in the link into the text field or the last 6 digits in the link that identify that paper. #10423
  • When importing entries form the "Citation relations" tab, the field cites is now filled according to the relationship between the entries. #10572
  • We added a new integrity check and clean up option for strings having Unicode characters not encoded in Unicode "Normalization Form Canonical Composition" (NFC). #10506
  • We added a new group icon column to the main table showing the icons of the entry's groups. #10801
  • When deleting an entry, the files linked to the entry are now optionally deleted as well. #10509
  • We added support to move the file to the system trash (instead of deleting it). #10591
  • We added ability to jump to an entry in the command line using -j CITATIONKEY. koppor#540
  • We added a new boolean to the style files for Openoffice/Libreoffice integration to switch between ZERO_WIDTH_SPACE (default) and no space. #10843
  • When pasting HTML into the abstract or a comment field, the hypertext is automatically converted to Markdown. #10558
  • We added the possibility to redownload files that had been present but are no longer in the specified location. #10848
  • We added the citation key pattern [camelN]. Equivalent to the first N words of the [camel] pattern.
  • We added importing of static groups and linked files from BibDesk .bib files. #10381
  • We added ability to export in CFF (Citation File Format) #10661.
  • We added ability to push entries to TeXworks. #3197
  • We added the ability to zoom in and out in the document viewer using Ctrl + Scroll. #10964
  • We added a Cleanup for removing non-existent files and grouped the related options #10929
  • We added the functionality to parse the bibliography of PDFs using the GROBID online service. #10200
  • We added a seperated search bar for the global search window. #11032
  • We added ability to double-click on an entry in the global search window to select the corresponding entry in the main table. #11010
  • We added support for BibTeX String constants during copy & paste between libraries. #10872
  • We added the field langid which is important for hyphenation and casing in LaTeX. #10868
  • Event log entries can now be copied via a context menu. #11100
Changed
  • The "Automatically open folders of attached files" preference default status has been changed to enabled on Windows. koppor#56
  • The Custom export format now uses the custom DOI base URI in the preferences for the DOICheck, if activated forum#4084
  • The index directories for full text search have now more readable names to increase debugging possibilities using Apache Lucense's Lurk. #10193
  • The fulltext search also indexes files ending with .pdf (but do not having an explicit file type set). #10193
  • We changed the arrangement of the lists in the "Citation relations" tab. Cites are now on the left and Cited by on the right #10572
  • Sub libraries based on aux file can now also be generated if some citations are not found library. #10775
  • We rearranged the tab order in the entry editor and renamed the "Scite Tab" to "Citation information". #10821
  • We changed the duplicate handling in the Import entries dialog. Potential duplicate entries are marked with an icon and importing will now trigger the merge dialog #10914
  • We made the command "Push to TexShop" more robust to allow cite commands with a character before the first slash. forum#2699
  • We only show the notification "Saving library..." if the library contains more than 2000 entries. #9803
  • JabRef now keeps previous log files upon start. #11023
  • When normalizing author names, complete enclosing braces are kept. #10031
  • We enhanced the dialog for adding new fields in the content selector with a selection box containing a list of standard fields. #10912
  • We store the citation relations in an LRU cache to avoid bloating the memory and out-of-memory exceptions. #10958
  • Keywords field are now displayed as tags. #10910
  • Citation relations now get more information, and have quick access to view the articles in a browser without adding them to the library #10869
  • Importer/Exporter for CFF format now supports JabRef cites and related relationships, as well as all fields from the CFF specification. #10993
  • The XMP-Exporter no longer writes the content of the file-field. #11083
  • We added notes, checks and warnings for the case of selection of non-empty directories while starting a new Systematic Literature Review. #600
  • Text in the import dialog (web search results) will now be wrapped to prevent horizontal scrolling. #10931
  • We improved the error handling when invalid bibdesk-files are encountered #11117
Fixed
  • We fixed an issue where the fulltext search button in entry editor used to disappear on click till the search is completed. #10425
  • We fixed an issue where attempting to cancel the importing/generation of an entry from id is ignored. #10508
  • We fixed an issue where the preview panel showing the wrong entry (an entry that is not selected in the entry table). #9172
  • We fixed an issue where HTML-reserved characters like '&' and '
View older JabRef updates

Information

License

Free

Size

210.9 MB

Developer’s website

https://www.jabref.org/

Downloads

22950

App requirements

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bws2
bws2
Sep 3 2013
2.9.2
0.0
Sep 3 2013
0.0
Version: 2.9.2
Using OS 10.8.4 on an iMac and a MacbookPro with Safari 6.0.5 I have repeatedly downloaded JabRef 2.9.2, and 2.9, from MacUpdate and from SourceForge, and always when I try to run it gives the message that it is damaged and must be trashed. I am sure that if I could run it I could give a good rating, but I cannot run it.
Ervins Strauhmanis
Ervins Strauhmanis
Sep 4 2023
5.10
5.0
Sep 4 2023
5.0
Version: 5.10
Oleksii
Oleksii
Nov 4 2011
5.0
Nov 4 2011
5.0
Version: null
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