Mendeley Desktop

Select any reference to see the details in the right pane. You may edit the details for each field:

• Type: Change the type of reference by selecting from the drop-down menu at the top. The fields will change accordingly.
• Tags: Enter your own tags, or labels, to help with organising your library. Separate each tag with a semicolon. As you start typing, Mendeley will suggest tags you have previously used for other articles.
• Files: If you have a copy of the article you can add the file by clicking in the Files field. If you have a PDF file attached to a reference, you can annotate the PDF.

When adding references to your library always check that the details are complete, accurate, and in the correct fields. If you think that information is incorrect or missing you can correct this in a number of ways.

• Edit the details manually if necessary.
• Right click on the article title in the main window and select update details. This will update the details with the latest version of the entry from the Mendeley Web Catalog. The Mendeley Web Catalog is a collection of all the references added to personal libraries by Mendeley users. As more people add their versions of the same reference to their personal library, Mendeley compares and consolidates the different versions to ensure the Mendeley Catalog version is accurate. Be careful: if you don’t have much information about the item there is a risk that Mendeley will misidentify the item and update the wrong details.
• If the title is correct, you can then view the article details in the Mendeley Web Catalog by clicking on View research catalog entry for this paper in the Details tab in the right hand pane.
• If you have the PMID, ArXiv ID or the DOI, you can enter this in the appropriate field under Catalog IDs and click on the look-up tool.

At the top of the pane there is a separate Notes tab for you to add any personal notes about the item. Notes can be searched.

Mendeley Desktop continues to be available for existing users but is no longer available to download and is no longer under development. For guidance on using the new Mendeley Reference Manager, Mendeley Cite and Mendeley Web, see our Mendeley guide.