Papers 3 - Reference Manager Reviews

Does not function with icloud

Henry '10

The only feature that would make this useful is not available. the wifi syncing always freezes so I cannot access my papers on my iPad

I am a longtime Papers User. This new update allows me to download any paper from the internet and it is able to find citation info for most papers. As always, this app allows me to have all my papers at my fingertips. As a practicing clinician it's offline access is crucial (especially when I'm in a part of the hospital with little-no wifi).

Works

Briandkid

I've been using papers for 5 months now. It is an excellent way for keeping up a bibliography and syncs to all my devices through Dropbox.

Two steps forward, and a leap backward

Btracz

Issues w this version: writing w apple stylus still hopelessly bad and laggy. "Natural" setting is essentially unusable. The Papers team is super ambivalent about improving this app. The PDF annotation experience has not improved at all in the past 2 years, despite the advances by competitors. Stockholm syndrome is gripping the reviews below. I would have given up on Papers long ago. Now I'm just giving in to the fallacy of sunk costs... EDIT: to top it off, the app no longer appears to be supported by its developers. No update in over a year. Yay!

Loyal fan says: still not up to scratch

ericmajinglong

I have been a Papers user since their first version's beta. The "iTunes for PDFs" paradigm holds true, they win my 3 stars for that. Metadata imports correctly, easily searchable database etc. On a modern device though, they have yet to catch up. Synchronization of the database doesn't happen fast enough upon launch; I still find myself manually hitting the synchronization button faster than the software detects the need to. Unacceptable for a mobile solution. The devs should also take a page from Skitch, which allows for really convenient document markup. Finally, yes, they also ask me to rate the software on launch... Not the best time to do so, it is disrespectful of the user's workflow. For those points, two stars lost. Fix those first two, and I will bump my review to 5-stars. Update: recently downloaded Papers again, and found that it doesn't launch successfully at all after enabling synchronization! I tap the app, it launches, and the promptly quits. Not sure what's going on here...

Failures in basic functionality

kringlechris

I’ve been using papers for about 6 months. While there have always been minor frustrations and bugs, it was better than my old system of organizing PDFs. I particularly enjoyed being able to sync between my iPad, which I use mostly for reading papers, and my computer, which I use when I write. Having the same files organized across both was excellent. Things have broken down since iOS11. I am no longer able to access any papers on my iPad, even though they are still available on desktop. I’ve reached out to technical support and they said they have no solution. This is a very disappointing response given that reading and accessing your library of PDFs is the central function of the app.

Used to work great but no longer loads PDFs

k2

I’ve been using Papers on my laptop and iPad for years but the IOS version stopped loading my PDFs so I’m giving them only one star since it’s basically an useless app now. Fix the Dropbox syncing please.

Sync problem.

J2J@J22jjcc

This version(3.4.7) has a problem to download my PDFs in a synced Dropbox library. It redirects me to some PDF urls such as IEEE Xplore even I have the right file. This is very disappointing me. Except this crucial problem, this app always have problems to sync files between multiple devices. It is TOO slow and sometimes is not completed at right time.

Broken: not able to access pdf files from synched library

bill_joy

I have been an avid user of Papers since the first version of the app. While it has seen its share of problems throughout the years, steady progress and a great base functionality has made me invest in Papers by including it many aspects of my workflow (reading and annotating papers, managing citations to write articles, etc.). However, under iOS11, the app simply does not work: it is impossible to access pdf files of articles for a library synched via Dropbox. The files are accessible by navigating to them using the Dropbox app, and all works properly on the OSX version of the app, but it is impossible to read PDFs on iOS devices. This is the main functionality of this app and although costumer support acknowledges this bug and says “a fix will be available early next week”, two weeks+ have past with no news.

No longer syncs PDFs via Dropbox

BennyLava

I generally have had good experience with Papers3. I just noticed that I am no longer able to download PDFs that are in my library on Dropbox to the iOS app. I see another reviewer has been awaiting a fix for several weeks at least. I can see PDFs previously downloaded to my phone. I hope a fix is forthcoming.

Papers 3 - Reference Manager Reviews – Page 7