EndNote 8 on Mac (OS 10.13.6)

As a long-time EndNote user, I’m very frustrated with the slow speed of EndNote on my Mac (running Word 2016). The combination of EndNote’s reluctance to go to 64-bit until Apple mandates it, the problems with PDF file management, issues with TimeMachine in the background, and  Synch issues are becoming too much to accept. I am seriously considering switching programs.

       While the tech support folks do their best to support users and propose work-arounds, they are stymied until software development and upgrades are put in place. One tech support person today actually suggested I create a second copy of my library, minus the PDFs - this vitiates one of the most central reasons I need EndNote!

      I think that Apple users should be flooding this forum with stories of our experiences, to make sure Clarviate knows that they are alienating a key constituency. I am seriously questioning whether I can continue to recommend EndNote to my colleagues and grad students, and may not be building it into a multi-site research project due to these many glitches.

Absolutely true. As a company Clarivate seems to have no interest in updates or users. Time to find new software or Clarivate to seed the software to someone who will look after it and it’s users. Total shame.

After years and years of using EndNote, since long before it was acquired by a large impersonal multinational corporation, and witnessing clueless tech support recommendations on this and other issues with EN8, I switched and am still wondering why it took me so long. There are many options-choose the one that works best for you. For me, Bookends works best, but lots of other options people had recommended. Most programs import from EndNote just fine, and often provide more functionality than EndNote with less cost, better support (Bookends has a single person who always manages to weigh in on user issues in a general forum like this one, so it’s easy to get actual tech support when needed). Give it and others a try and see if one or more options isn’t dramatically better than EndNote. I would also wager that no 64-bit support will be forthcoming until the next version of macOS that will require it, and even then there will be no update to X8 or even X9 but a requirement to buy an upgrade to the “new and improved, 64-bit!” EndNote X10.

Ridiculous.