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Mendeley

Guide to a free, easy-to-use tool that helps you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources

How do I add references to Mendeley?

The Mendeley Web Importer allows you to quickly add references from websites and from the Libraries databases and catalog search. To use the Mendeley Web Importer:

  1. Sign in to Mendeley (you might also have to enable pop-ups on your browser).
  2. Find an article online.
  3. Click the Web Importer icon or button:
    1. Some browsers will display a button at the top right that looks like the Mendeley icon.
    2. Some browsers will use a bookmarklet importer which is saved to your favorites bar (likely labeled Save to Mendeley).
    3. Don't see the icon? Check for any overflow menus or folders that it might be in. For example, it is often nested under the puzzle piece icon in Chrome; in other browsers, check the extensions menu.
  4. Choose a folder (optional).
  5. Apply tags and notes (optional).
  6. Save.
NOTE: While you can import references from a variety of websites and library databases, there are some sites that will not work and/or library databases that will provide incomplete reference details that may require more editing than others. 

 

Web Importer icon.

You can easily add documents (PDFs) saved on your computer by simply dragging them into your Mendeley library; this works in both the web-based (Mendeley Web) and desktop (Mendeley Reference Manager for Desktop) versions of Mendeley:

  1. Sign in to Mendeley.
  2. Save the article and/or locate the PDF(s) on your computer desktop or download folder.
  3. Drag each article PDF directly on top of your Mendeley library list OR use the +Add New button in the menu bar.
  4. Mendeley should pull the needed reference elements needed from the text of the article.
NOTE: Mendeley will not always be able to pull all the necessary elements for a citation from a PDF and sometimes it will fail entirely. Check your preferred citation style rules for required fields; you can easily cross reference the information Mendeley pulls against the document to fill in missing elements.

 

Adding PDFs from a computer.