The default position when opening Mendeley Desktop is ‘All Documents,’ which will list all items in your library. The left-hand panel offers a number of different options to help filter your document list to exactly what you need to find.

Mendeley Desktop’s interface should be fairly intuitive if you’re familiar with programs like iTunes, or even Gmail.

You will be prompted to check over the details of the combined version before the merger is completed - allowing you to take details from each of the entries you’re merging.

Mendeley will identify any duplicate entries and offer to merge these into a single, combined entry. Use ‘Check for Duplicates’ - found in the Tools menu. Luckily, Mendeley can clean these up for you.

You may find that after collecting a library of references that you have accumulated some duplicate entries - where two copies of the same reference have been added to your library.

Mendeley will also sync automatically each time you open it. You can sync at any time by using the sync button. It’s a good idea to sync regularly to ensure that your documents and annotations are saved in the cloud. Syncing will also pull down any changes made on other devices. Whenever you make changes in Mendeley, you’ll need to sync in order to push those changes up into cloud storage.

Syncing is a core concept in Mendeley.

You also have the option to create a reference manually - which will allow you to complete a number of fields by hand. You can also easily import a library from other reference managers, so if you’ve tried out EndNote, Reworks or another solution and found them not to your liking, you can carry across your library to Mendeley easily. If it finds a new document, that document will be automatically added to your Mendeley library. You can opt to ‘watch’ a folder - which will mean that Mendeley monitors that location for any new items being dropped into the folder. You can choose to add individual files, or the contents of an entire folder by browsing to the relevant location on your computer. You can find these by opening the File menu.

Mendeley also offers a number of other options for adding material to your library.

We won’t go into too much detail on Mendeley Web here - but if you’re interested in using it, there’s a dedicated guide available in the Mendeley Resource Center. The same three-column structure persists. The layout is similar to what we’ve just seen for Mendeley Desktop - although it has been optimized for use in a browser.

You’ll need to be logged into your Mendeley account in order to access it.

Mendeley Web is the version of Mendeley accessible via your web browser.

Validate your account login in to your account for getting access.

Is mendeley free