Bookends is a full-featured bibliography/reference and information-management system for students and professionals.

• Bookends uses the cloud to sync reference libraries on all the Macs you use. Access the power of Bookends directly from Mellel, Nisus Writer Pro, or MS Word (including Word 2016): Bookends allows you to scan your existing word-processor files and automatically generate finished manuscripts with properly formatted bibliographies. You can also scan Apple Pages '08, '09, and 5, Manuscripts.app, and LibreOffice/OpenOffice 4 files, or RTF files saved from any word processor.
• Bookends allows you to share your references over the Internet with anyone, on any platform. And with Bookends, you can directly search and import references from numerous sources:
  • PubMed
  • Web of Science
  • JSTOR
  • Google Scholar
  • Amazon
  • Library of Congress
  • arXiv
  • and hundreds of other online sources
  Or use a built-in browser to download references with PDF's and/or Web pages. Also, with automatic searches of PubMed, you can discover articles as soon as they're published. Bookends allows for powerful group-based searches, with static, smart, virtual groups, and smart folders as well as tag clouds that make hierarchical searches easy.
• Bookends also offers a robust assortment of file attachment features:
  • Attach any file (such as a PDF) to a reference and view or open it instantly.
  • Automatically rename and organize PDF files on-the-fly.
  • Automatically download and attach the PDF of an article from the Internet if you have access permission.
  • Automatically locate and attach PDF's on your hard drive.
  • Annotate and markup PDFs and have the information instantly accessible in notecards.
  • Bookends 14 has a new bundle id
  This means that older versions of some apps that integrate with Bookends (e.g., Mellel, Nisus Writer Pro, DEVONthink, and Tinderbox) will not be able to send AppleEvents to Bookends 14. We have worked with each of these companies and they have released updates that work with Bookends 14: Mellel 5.0.8, NWP 3.2.2, Tinderbox 9, and DEVONthink3 3.8 work with Bookends 14.
  
  • Introducing cloud sync version 2 (v2)
  The original Bookends cloud sync (version 1) used Apple's CloudKit JS APIs, which give web apps access to iCloud. Bookends now uses Apple's native CloudKit. You must be signed into iCloud and have enabled iCloud Drive in System Preferences to sync. The major advantage at this time is that v2 uses your macOS iCloud account information, meaning that there is no need to log in separately to iCloud in Bookends. Importantly, native CloudKit will allow us to expand Bookends' sync capabilities in future releases.
  
  • Much improved PDF search results
  The results of a PDF search will be listed, with the bolded search word shown in context along with page where it was found. Clicking on an item in the list will take you to its location in the PDF.
  
  • New Cited By Inspector
  If the parent reference has a PMID this inspector will use PubMed to find all of the references in which it has been cited. You can view a reference in your browser by double clicking on it, or import it by clicking the download button, right-clicking, or drag and drop. When using the first two methods, you have the option to automatically link the imported reference to its parent. Note that the references found by PubMed may or may not correspond to other sources that track citing references. Hover the pointer over a reference to see the full contents in the help tag.
  
  • Cited In Inspector adds PubMed as a source
  If the parent reference has a PMID Bookends will use PubMed to find which references are cited in the parent reference. PubMed has much more information about cited references than CrossRef and the results are resolved much more quickly. If there is no PMID and the parent reference has a DOI, Bookends will use Crossref as before. From the inspector you can view a reference in your browser by double clicking on it, or import it by clicking the download button, right-clicking, or drag and drop. When using the first two methods, you have the option to automatically link (work: work cited) the imported reference and its parent. Hover the pointer over a reference to see the full contents in the help tag.
  
  • The two Cited Inspectors won't change the parent when used to import references
  
  • The way that Link Inspector relationships are created and synced has been completely rewritten
  Although transparent to users, this will make it easier to add improvements in the future.
  
  • The Attachments Inspector now shows each attachment’s path name
  
  • Added a peer-to-peer relationship to reference links
  This is useful if you want to link references that do not have a hierarchical relationship, for example references cited in a paper (article-to-article) or chapters in a book (chapter-to-chapter).
  
  • Various modifications to the Link Inspector
  The ability to add comments to individual linkages has been removed. Cosmetic improvements.
  
  • Double clicking on a reference will not toggle the edit pane or PDF viewer if the Links, Cited In, or Cited By Inspector is open
  In those cases it will simply set the Inspector parent to the reference clicked on. Previously, it would do both.
  
  • Show attachment names in the reference list column view
  You can set this in preferences (Lists tab) or with a right-click contextual menu in the reference list. Names of multiple attachments belonging to the same reference will be separated with semicolons.
  
  • Use Bookends Browser to replace an orphaned attachment
  Select the reference with the orphaned attachment and open Bookends Browser in the display pane. Depending on the URL stored with that reference, the browser will display either the PDF or the reference's web site from which you can navigate to the PDF. Click the paper clip attach icon and the PDF will be downloaded and replace the existing orphaned attachment. Note that if you have more than one attachment, orphaned or not, Bookends will simply add the PDF to the attachment list and you should detach the orphaned attachment yourself.
  
  • The reference list contextual menu "Sort By Label" has been changed to "Group By Color"
  This reflects the difference between sorting the Label column, which is ordered by the text assigned to each color, and this function, which groups references with the same color.
  
  • Bibliographies sent to disk as UTF-8 or UTF-16 will have the extension .txt
  If output as Plain Text, the extension will be set to .ris if the RIS format is used.
  
  • There is a new AppleScript property to get the path to a library's default attachment subfolder, if any (library attachments subfolder path)
  If no library subfolder has been set, Bookends will return the path to the default attachment folder itself.
  
  • Typographic quote marks will be converted to their BibTeX equivalents when "BibTeX Markup" is specified for the formatted output
  
  • A reference’s unique ID can no longer be changed by the user
  Too many features that depend on the unique ID and would break if it were changed.
  
  • On launch Bookends will check for and "forget" ad hoc attachment folders that are in the Trash
  
  • The reference list right-click contextual menus have been modified
  Right-clicking on the paper clip icon now only shows options relevant for attachments.
  
  • Improved user control when downloading PDFs
  A Skip button in the PDF -> Download From Internet dialog immediately stops the attempt to get the current PDF and moves to the next selected reference, if there is one. This is useful if the online source is slow to respond or hangs, and is more reliable than pressing Command-.
  
  • Online searches can be stopped by clicking the progress wheel
  This is more reliable than pressing Command-.
  
  • Improved Autocomplete Paper UI
  The sheet remembers its dimensions between openings during a session. When references are found, the default button changes from Search to Import, and import will be triggered by pressing the Return key.
  
  • When fetching metadata using PDFs downloaded from pre-print servers like bioRxiv and medRxiv, Bookends places the name of the pre-print server in the Journal field
  Note that once the paper is published that version will receive a new DOI.
  
  • Any text in the live search field will be selected after you select and group and the reference list is updated
  This makes it easier to delete if you no longer want to filter the results.
  
  • If present, the following characters will be removed from automatically-generated BibTeX keys: ’\&^
  
  • When attaching a PDF whose reference already exists in the library, you will still have the option to attach to a new reference and import the metadata
  This is be useful if, for example, you are adding separate PDFs for a book and its chapters.
  
  • Bug fixes
  Fixed the format of the date in the Added column when duplicating a reference. Cosmetic fix for the display of the selected reference’s text in the Link Inspector when it is in the background. Fixed a crash that could occur in Big Sur when running the Bookends demo on the same machine where there was an old version from the Mac App Store. Fixed a bug where failure to close the color picker in preferences could lead to an error message. The Google Books online search now responds to Command-. Fixed a bug that prevented changes to Types and field labels from being synced via the cloud. Fixed a bug where styled text in the Short Title field wasn't toggled to plain when it should be when formatting. Fixed a bug where the Attachments Inspector and pop-up menu of attachments weren't updated immediately after reattaching a file. The Attachment dialog subfolder pop-up menu will no longer show folder aliases the user placed in the default folder. Fixed a bug where the links column didn't update immediately when replicating a book as a book chapter. Fixed a bug where starting the watch folder without it first would result in the import of hundreds of files from the Bookends bundle. Fixed several bugs in the marooned file inspector that could cause a file to be listed as marooned even if it wasn't. Fixed a bug in several printing functions that resulted in white text on a white background when in Dark Mode. Fixed a bug in Pages scanning where the format's hanging indent setting was only honored for numbered bibliographies. Fixed two bugs in creating a bibliography in Dark Mode where the output was either black text on a black background or the file sent to disk was empty. A leading > for a comment will be excluded when copying the contents of a notecard. Fixed an error that could occur when the library was synced as it was closed. The color for a color label is now positioned correctly in the Summary view. Fixed an error that could occur when clicking on certain types of PDF annotations. Fixed a bug that in rare instances would cause an “illegal cast” error. Fixed a bug where user-defined Term List weren't remembered between launches. Fixed a bug in the PDF search field when a recent menu item was selected. Fixed a bug that prevented autofilling of individual fields from working. Fixed a bug that could cause a PDF to be scrolled to the end when opened by changing references using the arrow keys. Fixed a bug that caused the text of a field edited in the enlarged field window and then saved in Dark Mode to be 2 points too large and black. Fixed an error that could occur when dragging a reference from the floating citation window to a Mellel document.