JabRef

JabRef is an application created to provide you with the means to create and maintain a bibliography reference database.

It’s an open-source project that uses the standard LaTeX bibliography format and runs on the Java VM platform. The application uses a BibTeX database which generates bibliographic references in LaTeX documents.

JabRef displays a comprehensive interface that becomes more intuitive as you progress to work with it. Its functionality revolves around the BibTeX databases, which store the information you add to the bibliography.

When creating a database you can add entry types such as Article, Conference, Mastersthesis, Patent, Proceedings, Book, Inproceedings, Booklet, Manual and Techreport. For each of the categories you can add information about the author, title, journal, volume, pages, cross references, keywords, URLs and timestamps.

With JabRef you can also attach documents that correspond to the information found inside database. The documents can be located on your computer or on the Internet, as you can easily access URLs from within the application. Unlike in BibTeX the added links in JabRef are displayed as a customizable list that can easily be accessed from the editor.

JabRef offers you a wide range of features that help you create your database in an efficient way using entry classification, automatic key generation and search functions. It even provides you with color coding that let’s you know which entries are left incomplete and which require a certain field to be filled.

To make it more practical, JabRef enables you to import and use various formats such as BibTeXML, CSA, ISI Web of Science, Biblioscape, OVID, Scifinder, Refer/Endnote and SilverPlatter.

Another powerful feature that makes JabRef stand out is that with it, you can search for literature and scientific papers in external databases such as CiteseerX, Google Scholar, arXiv and Medline.

If you’re looking for an open source bibliography reference manager, you should give JabRef a try.