Releasing Reference Manager (Beta) For Word 2007

Posted on March 7, 2009 by ragrawal

What is Reference Manager ?

Reference Manager is an “Add-in” for Word 2007 that enhances Word 2007’s inbuilt bibliography feature. It essentially makes it possible to import and export articles using standard formats such as BibTex, RIS, etc. Currently, Reference Manager has four features:

1. Import from Website: Given a URL, this utility will automatically pull all the reference details. Check below for the list of compatible websites

2. Import from text file: If you have citations in BibTex, RIS or any other standard format, use this utility to import your citations into word.

3. Export: Export references in Bibtex and other standard formats

4. Search & Import: Search and import new articles. Currently, search functionality is limited to Memento Search. Thus, it can only retrieve those articles that are present on Memento

Checkout the  video to learn more about reference manager add-in

To download, click here

Is Reference Manager free?
Yes, Referece Manager is complete free. I developed this tool mainly to streamline my thesis writing process. I am so used to word that I wasn’t able to adopt any other writing tool such as LaTex. However, lack of ability to import articles made my life a hell. Finally, last month, I decided to write this add-in.

What are the system requirements to install this add-in

1. Internet – Reference manager calls Memento, an online bibliography manager, to import and export articles. Essentially, all the back-end process is done by the Memento server and the Reference Manager (or Memento) add-in simply provides a nice interface to integrate Word 2007 and Memento’s web-service.
2. Windows XP or Vista – I don’t know whether you can *.exe file on Mac
3. Microsoft Word 2007 or later – Of-coure !.  :)

How to Install
Note: I don’t have any other windows machine than my development machine. Hence, I can’t guarantee that installation will work perfectly. Try it and let me know if you are having any problem. I can, then, work on getting a cleaner installation file. In general, the installation process should be simple.

1. Download the zip file from here
2. Unzip the downloaded file and place it at some secure place such as under your documents folder.
3. Click on setup.exe. Depending on your system’s configuration, you might also have to install VSTO 2008. In any case, the setup.exe will report any problems. Just follow them. Also, if you find any problem, please let me know so that I can take appropriate actions so that other users won’t have to deal with the same problem.
4. Once everything is install properly, Open Word and check if there is a “Memento” tab or not. If there is, you are good to go. Enjoy

List of Compatible Websites

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

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24 Responses

  1. Microsft Word 2007 Bibliographic Feature - A Half Baked Idea « memento, on March 10th, 2009 at 3:59 pm Said:

    [...] | Tags: Bibliographic Manager, Microsoft Word | Note: Checkout my word 2007 Add-in plugin “Reference Manager” to import/export bibliographies using BibTex, RIS, and other formats and also to automatically [...]

    Reply
  2. Important Announcement « memento, on March 11th, 2009 at 12:43 pm Said:

    [...] on March 11, 2009. Filed under: General | Checkout Reference Manager,  a Microsoft Word 2007 Add-in to import/export bibliographies in BibTex, RIS and other standard [...]

    Reply
  3. Mohamed, on March 13th, 2009 at 2:33 am Said:

    How can one make one’s webiste compatible with your Reference Manager?

    Reply
  4. ragrawal, on March 13th, 2009 at 8:45 am Said:

    @Mohamed,
    If a website can provide bibliographic details such as author, journal, etc in BibTex or RIS format, then I can easily add that website in the list of compatible website. Currently, there is not automated way to add a website, but I am thinking of it.

    Reply
  5. wdhollings, on March 30th, 2009 at 3:18 pm Said:

    Just tried installing RefManager. Seemed to install okay…but no Memento tab appeared in Word (even after restarting Word).

    I went to the Word options and looked up Add-ins. RefManager appeared in list of Inactive Add-ins. Selected Manage COM Add-ins, where it appeared deselected. When I tried to select it, a generic “an error occured on loading” error appeared. So…I tried removing it by clicking the Remove buddon in the COM Add-ins dialog box.

    RefManager is now missing from the list of Add-Ins, but when I try to reinstall from your setup-exe, I get a result “The latest version of this customization is already installed”.

    How do I either uninstall and reinstall, or get Word to see this Add-In again?

    Thanks…

    …Bill

    Reply
  6. Samuel Lambert, on April 22nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm Said:

    Just want to say, thank you for this application. Very very useful !
    There’s a bug with Endnote X2 and word 2007, so the “cite while you write” doesn’t work. Your application will save me a lot of time.

    Reply
  7. Dr Myron Schultz, on May 11th, 2009 at 8:04 am Said:

    Hi, My name is Dr Myron Schultz and I have just installed Reference manager. Thank you.

    After installing it, which appeared to go successfully I could not find the ‘Momento’ tab. Either I am missing it, or it did not install correctly. Please assist me.

    Reply
  8. Mohsen, on May 15th, 2009 at 4:17 am Said:

    I can’t install it,
    when Setup download 2 package and begin to setup it, installation doesn’t progress any more.

    Reply
  9. pHi, on May 15th, 2009 at 9:31 pm Said:

    hi.
    i a writing my thesis too, and your utility seems great. i’m testing it right now, and so far, so good. i used to convert my bibtex entries with jabref, but having something right into word is far more convenient. thanks a lot for your precious work.
    by the way, here is an idea for further dev : i use citeulike.org, a web based database for managin my bibliography (there is bibsonomy, in the same flavor)), and besides bibtex and risit provides rss feeds of one’s library. i think it would be very convenient to be able to subscribe to such a feed in your software, to have a fully automated citation database. as it’s rss, i think it’s easyer to parse than bibtex. anyway, just an idea…
    again, thanks a lot for your work

    Reply
    • ragrawal, on May 15th, 2009 at 9:42 pm Said:

      @pHi

      you mean a rss feed within word, so you can select articles from it. I liked the idea. Meanwhile I am working on building a universal search engine that will be part of my tool. This search will take your search query adn look for related articles across different websites such as ingenta, blackwell, google scholar, hotwire..I am planning to release by next month.
      Also I liked your idea and will try to roll out that feature too in my next release

      Reply
  10. Bruno, on May 21st, 2009 at 2:38 pm Said:

    I m getting the following error: the underlying connection was closed.
    I m getting that error in: “Import from text”

    Reply
  11. Gustavo, on May 23rd, 2009 at 5:19 pm Said:

    Thank you very much for releasing this software, it has been extremely useful in my thesis writing. Regards from a Brazilian in Finland.

    Reply
  12. Kurt, on June 9th, 2009 at 1:59 pm Said:

    Thanks for the software it has saved lots of time. Importing ~200 references for a thesis.

    I have been using import from text file. It works well except for non-english characters such as “ä”. The characters display properly in notepad when I copy the bibtex. They also display properly once pasted in the import box. But in the bibliography it shows as “ä”. Im using manage sources to correct the entries one by one. Is there a workaround?

    A feature recommendation: Add a button for import from clipboard. When using the import from text file feature I always copy and paste to the text box. Import from clipboard could automatically pull the info from the clipboard without having to click in the text box, click paste and hit ok. Not a big deal but it would save a few seconds.

    A fix for some other posters: I was having trouble with the tab showing up. Installing the Interop package first solved the problem for me.
    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=59DAEBAA-BED4-4282-A28C-B864D8BFA513&displaylang=en

    Reply
  13. Alv Marenco, on August 24th, 2009 at 7:51 pm Said:

    I tried to install the Add-in and unfortunately Word can not load the add-ins at startup. It seems to me that Word 2007 does not recognize the path as:
    file///c:/whateverDir\RefereceManager.vsto is located.
    I think that is where the problem is – Normally it would be:
    c:\whateverDir\RefereceManager.vsto
    Any suggestions? I was able to run setup flawlessly and do have the latest VSTO tool installed.

    BTW, I have EndNote installed, any possble conflict from that end?

    Reply
  14. Alv Marenco, on August 26th, 2009 at 2:07 pm Said:

    Hello Ritesh,

    A successful installation. It did work and now I have the Memento tab. I really appreciate it. I will give you any feedback if anything comes up after using it.

    Great.

    Thanks,

    Alv

    Reply
  15. Chris, on September 4th, 2009 at 10:52 am Said:

    Thanks for the addin, works brilliantly saves me time from typing each and every reference in word manually.
    Though, I have noticed that when importing using website option or the text option (Bibtex as well as others), the addin is not importing the information regarding the conference proceeding or journal name.
    Please Help.
    Cheers…

    Reply
    • ragrawal, on September 21st, 2009 at 7:28 pm Said:

      Hi Chris,

      This is because acm.portal uses short form for journal and conference name. Let me know if I am wrong. I will also make sure that I am not making any mistake.

      Reply
  16. Chris, on September 14th, 2009 at 8:54 am Said:

    Hey,
    Any thought about my previous message. Missing conference proceedings and journal names while importing into reference manager.
    Looking forward for your reply.
    Cheers…

    Reply
  17. Emanuel, on September 19th, 2009 at 10:39 pm Said:

    I had the same problem with the Memento tab not showing up (Reference Manager appeared as inactive in the list of COM-addins). Installing the Office 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies, and then uninstalling and reinstalling Reference Manager solved the problem.

    Reply
  18. Sebastian B, on September 21st, 2009 at 6:21 pm Said:

    Hi,
    thank you for your plugin. I’m starting my thesis now and I’m sure I’ll save y lot of time with it. :-)

    I just found out, that http://www.worldcat.org is one of the biggest litarature catalogs in the world (1.4 billion entries). Would it be possible to integrate it into your plugin search or your “copy from website” funcionality.

    THANKS A LOT MAN! Greetings from Germany
    Sebastian

    Reply

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