Papers by ReadCube Extension 4+

After installing it, I couldn't find this extension in my papers desktop or online. Even after enabling it in the Safari preferences. It is sad that the new papers has lost the ability to search for papers online in Pubmed for example. Other aspects of the new app work well, but I have to first download articles through Entree PubMed, and then import them into the papers library. An inconvenience. The help functions for this new readcube app are very poor. The videos go way to fast to follow, and the written pages don't jive with the app.

This extension allows Papers users to quickly add articles to their journal article collections. In case you are not aware, Papers is a Mac-friendly Reference Manager app similar to EndNote, Mendely, etc. I adopted its use 9 years ago because of its superior functionality (at the time) compared to other options. It does require a modest subscription fee, but its integration with life science journal websites is excellent. The iOS reader is very good, and so my iPad is my preferred way to read journal aricles.

I used the Chrome extension for years, when browsing PubMed articles and the related journal websites. It provide a quick mechanism for adding an article to ones Papers library. I was never super happy using Chrome because I find it more clunky than Safari.

I was not aware of this extension for Safari, and just loaded it now (Dec. 2024) for Safari v.18. For me it works great. When installed two things happen: 1) A left side bar appears when browsing an article in PubMed allowing you to add the article to you library, and the PDF. Additionally, there is an icon on the Safari menu bar that allows you do the same but also modify settings and add notes.

I run the desktop app just to put a copy of all my books and papers on the Mac. I use papers in Chrome, where everything works perfectly (not all relevant extensions work well in Safari yet; there doesn't even seem to be a Google Scholar extension for Safari). This is much more convenient than using a desktop app, since I search for papers in the browser, and use an extension to add ones I find. Almost everything about Papers 3 is a big improvement over Papers 2. The only major improvement it needs is to get metadata by ISBN for books. You have to lookup the DOI, or put the metadata in by hand.