Papers (software)
Papers is a reference management software available for macOS and Windows. It was designed to facilitate the management of bibliographies and references for essays and articles. The software's primary function is to organize references and maintain a digital library of PDF documents.
Overview
Papers was developed by Alexander Griekspoor and Tom Groothuis while studying towards their PhD diplomas at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. The pair worked on Papers to provide an approach to document management that was similar to the iTunes application on macOS, after they were faced with hundreds of digital publications in PDF format. Papers was originally released as a public preview in February 2007, followed by the full 1.0 version a few months later.In 2013, a new version of the software was released, along with a new Apple app. Both products received a considerable amount of criticism from users, who experienced a number of issues, ranging from lost databases and annotations to incompatibility between mobile and desktop apps. Users criticized Mekentosj and Springer, the developer and owner of Papers, respectively, for releasing a beta version of the software and the pace at which they addressed many issues that rendered the software effectively unusable.
On March 16, 2016, ReadCube acquired Papers from Springer Nature for an undisclosed amount. ReadCube Papers has been available since Fall 2019.
Versions
Mac
With the release of Papers 2 in March 2011, Papers provides EndNote style reference citation features. It also allows users to access their library and insert citations across a variety of different applications, whether in documents, presentations, or in web browsers. Papers offers a number of features for collecting, curating, merging and linking articles.Papers 3, a new version for Mac was released in late 2013. This version introduces a redesigned user interface and Dropbox based syncing, which has subsequently been expanded to other cloud-based repositories.
As of November 1st, 2018, Papers 3 is no longer available for sale and is no longer being actively developed. The new version of Papers is developed by ReadCube. It is primarily used to organize references and maintain a library of PDF documents and also provides a uniform interface for document repository searches, metadata editing, full screen reading and, a variety of ways to import and export documents.