Allow download of PDFs directly from Mendeley Desktop
If a reference has an URL/DOI/PMID/etc., but no PDF yet associated with it, allow downloading this PDF automatically with a click from Mendeley Desktop.
Obviously only for freely accessible PDFs, and supported websites. This would work in exactly the same way as the bookmarklet import.
janne-hyotyla
shared this idea
AdminMendeley
(Admin, Mendeley)
responded
We are aware of this request and have logged it with our Development Team. Obviously there are various problems associated with implementing a change such as this. Nevertheless, the request has been noted.
66 comments
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mighalis magnus
commented
I have a large database of papers imported without pdf's (the majority of them are from Arxiv) and i have to re-download and merge by hand. As you could understand i cannot waste so much time when other software do it very very easy. So i agree tha Mendeley comes to second/third place. I already started searching for a replace.
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Rodrigo Leiva
commented
Still Jabref is more powerfull in this and other features.
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Ben
commented
This would be very useful. I don't think it would be that complicated to implement because Mendeley already pulls out the URL for the article. Now it would only work if you're on a network where you have access to journals but most people would be on a university network so it wouldn't be a problem
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Anonymous
commented
This would be so useful!
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Michael Sayre
commented
ReadCube does this quite nicely. Check it out.
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Forrest
commented
Wow, have to agree... I've come back to Mendeley after a couple years hoping that through all its maturation it might have received the few features that sent me back to EndNote the last time.. but unfortunately this is one of them.
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Daniel
commented
Well I agree with all the rest.
This doesn't seem to be so difficult to implement, technically. To me it sounds like there is something more stopping this feature. Politics, licensing? Why are you stalling? Can you please give us a straight answer. Then maybe people will have the patience to wait. -
disgruntled.
commented
How are there numerous problems with implementing this change? Endnote has been doing since like 2003.
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Jock Bovington
commented
This would be huge! Also, if there was a way to port the download requests through a proxy so that it automatically gives you the subscription rights that you have on campus, for example.
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Anonymous
commented
Question, May 4 2009
Kind-of-Answer-not-really-that, Oct 25, 2012
3 years and five months to (not) answer… Really?!
Do you expect us to be waiting that long...You know, the world… Eppur Si Muove!
PCB, Oporto, Portugal
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Jake W. Mohin
commented
Mendeley has really stalled in development. After so much initial excitement, this feature, alond with printing, is driving me back to endnote.
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Janelle
commented
It's been three years since someone originally posted this suggestion and still nothing has happened?! Please make this a reality--now!!!
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Jake commented
I'm still shocked mendeley DOESN'T have this... so irritating, and the only reason while I still use endnote
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Anonymous
commented
This would be a paradigm-shifting change. I hope that the integration and retrieval of pdfs from online article databases will be automatic. I suppose most of the Mendeley users have institutional access to full text pdfs.
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vaibhav mishra
commented
This is very good software but How can I download all PDF's or pdf folder, organize by me in mendeley desktop software?
vaibhav mishra
cs.vaibhavmishra@gmail.com -
Kafka
commented
It could be inspired from readcube (which may become a serious competitor, by the way, as they push quite far in term of automatic fetching of files and metadata).
They allow entering an EZproxy or http proxy for authenticated logging via universities, to fetch from Nature.com or the like. One could also add SOCKS protocol to access internet via a tunnel, like in Firefox.
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Anonymous
commented
This, along with the poor usability of the Word plugin, makes Mendeley second-rate. It's such a shame to see a great idea not compete with the equivalent corporate nonense because of such a small problem. Heck, I'd write it for them on my free time if I could checkout a branch of the codebase.
"Download PDF". Make it a button. Return an error if theres a licensing issue. That's it; instantly better program. -
Graham Sazama
commented
To avoid spamming licenses, I suppose an option to click a PDF-less citation and "get PDF" would require user input to download. This would prevent robo-downloading from being an issue.
I agree that access via Academic institution proxy services would make this an incredibly solid feature of Mendeley. Right now it's the key thing holding me back from using it exclusively. Adding PDFs is an extra step as it stands (I don't need more work). I find it, get the citation, download the PDF, then have to import it into Mendeley and match it with the citation (sometimes). Would be terrific to just find the citation and go read it in Mendeley, cutting out 3 unnecessary steps.
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Varun
commented
It looks like the new version automatically does this for _all_ files with a linked URL - that is BAD. Because now it will try to sync a large database with my portable device every time...
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JORJ
commented
maybe you can also search web of science with Mendeley.
