Mendeley Reference Manager

Mendeley Reference Manager allows you to read, highlight, and annotate PDF articles and keep all your thoughts organized across multiple documents in one place.

Reading PDFs in Mendeley:

• Double Click a reference with attached PDF.
• The PDF opens in a document reader in Mendeley.
• Start reading and annotating the PDF.

Use the annotating tools for PDF in Mendeley to organize your thoughts:

Annotating PDFs:

1. Use the Highlight tool to highlight the text of the document.
2. Right Click the highlighted text, a Sticky Note box will popup.

3. Click Sticky Note box to add your notes. Your notes will appear in the Annotations tab on the right.

Using Notebook Function:

The Mendeley Notebook helps you organize notes on specific topics from one or multiple references in your Mendeley library.  It is especially useful for gathering information from various PDFs and keeping them in one place.

1. Click the Notebook icon on the left panel; this will open the Notebook on the right panel.
2. Click “New Page” at the bottom of the right panel to add a new Notebook page.
3. Type the title of the new Notebook (e.g., project name), and type your thoughts on the notebook.

4. Double click a reference with attached file to open the PDF.
5. Use the Highlight tool to highlight the text of the document.
6. Left click the highlighted text, a box will appear.

7. Click “Add to Notebook” to add the text to the Notebook on the right panel. The text will appear in a box with quotation marks in the Notebook. Clicking this text box will navigate you back to the original location of the text in the PDF.
8. Continue the process to add text from other references in the notebook. Here is an example of a notebook:

Additional Guide: Reading and annotating your documents

Watch the video below on how to use Notebook function and annotate articles in Mendeley:

Video created by Thomas Cooper Library (2022, January 20). Mendeley Notebook Feature.