Is there anything that Endnote can do but Zotero can't do?

isonomia
Hi folks,

I was thinking about uninstalling Endnote from my disk.
I hear there a feature of journal statistics in Endnote, but I never tired it.
Is there any good reason to leave it on my computer?

Thanks a lot!
  • ajlyon
    It is sometimes useful for importing data from certain formats that Zotero does not support.
  • adamsmith
    It depends. There are a number of features in Endnote that Zotero doesn't have.
    Among the most important:
    - Endnotes allows you to batch-edit items, e.g. change or add the author for multiple items at once (it might even have search&replace)
    - Endnote works better with super-large libraries. Zotero isn't much joy with libraries above 20,000 - Endnote has no limit.
    - Endnote allows for multiple, sorted bibliographies, e.g. one for primary sources and one for secondary sources as is common in history
    - Endnote can use lists of journal abbreviations to replace journal names in citations
    - Endnote has some import options (e.g. from Excel I believe) that Zotero doesn't have.

    There are probably a couple more. If you're happy with Zotero you're probably never miss them, but since you asked...
    Generally I'd err on the side of keeping software around - you might want to collaborate with someone who refuses to use anything but Endnote, for example.
  • unhammer
    "you might want to collaborate with someone who refuses to use anything but Endnote, for example." precisely for this reason I tend to delete software like Endnote, so that I can say "oh, sorry, I don't have that and I don't really want to spend a bunch of money on it right now, but Zotero is free..." but I understand that not everyone is willing to do that ;)
  • bdarcus
    And in Endnote you can create or edit styles.

    Not at all endorsing using it, though ;-)
  • few
    FWIW, you *can* create or edit styles in Zotero... though it does take a bit of work...

    I look forward to batch edits and/or journal abbreviation list support.
  • pet1202
    adamsmith wrote:
    - Endnote works better with super-large libraries. Zotero isn't much joy with libraries above 20,000 - Endnote has no limit.

    Is 20000 an "official" number? Is it likely to increase in the future? What is the reason for this limitation?

    Thanks,
    paul

    PS: I love Zotero.
  • adamsmith
    edited September 28, 2010
    no it's not official.
    The two limitations are syncing and speed.
    syncing very large libraries isn't currently possible but, if I understand correctly, that is about to be solved.

    Speed is a matter of taste as well as the actual speed of the computer. With full-text indexing off, I don't think it's a problem even with large databases at the moment. Speed issues are continuously being addressed. I believe there is the hope that FF 4.0 will allow for a significant bump in performance.
  • bdarcus
    FWIW, you *can* create or edit styles in Zotero... though it does take a bit of work...
    For most users though, changing styles is not practical. So yes, you can edit styles; but not from within the Zotero GUI.
  • ftr
    I still have Endnote on my pc because years ago I was obliged to buy it : at that time it was just the standard in my discipline. If you want to do collaborative research, write multi-author articles you had to have it because all the other colleagues already used it. Today, it may have changed but I just keep it.

    But Zotero and EndNote do not have the capacities of finding and sorting text like AskSam has (search in context, for instance). It is really a pity that Zotero does not allow this. This functionality just helps to work with large text data bases. For instance, when you search two strings you don't get aa result a document that has the first term in the first para and the second 15 pages later, but only those that have both terms in the same sentence.

    But I guess Zotero will never in this class, it's a very easy-to-use biblio data base. That's already ok.
  • ajlyon
    But note that since Zotero is open source and open to innovative user contributions, it would be possible to build a plug-in for Zotero that did search in context. That would be nearly impossible for Endnote, and their past behavior might make you worry that they'd sue you for trying.
  • noksagt
    In fact, Zotero plans to use SQLite's full text search in the future. Once this happens, adding the ability to do NEAR queries should be relatively straight-forward.
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