In September 2022 Mendeley – announced that its “Mendeley Desktop” version would no longer be available to download. This had been the version that was around for years and QMed has been teaching the use of this tool for quite some time.
The new version – the “Mendeley Reference Manager” was launched more than a year ago. Ever since, both versions were available for downloading. But on September 1, Mendeley removed the option of downloading the older version
Normally a new version has lots more features or is better in one more ways. As we analyzed it in QMed, we were surprised to find quite a few challenges with the new version.
- Installing the plug in to insert Citations and References. In the Desktop, it was a breeze. You just clicked Tools/Install Word Plugin and you were good to go. For the new version, one is expected to have Office 365 or Office 2016 or newer versions. And still it is not easy. We tried it with Word 2016 and still got an error message that said Word does not support this. And we could use the old plugin. So that is fine with us, but what about those who do not have the old download?
- The Mendeley Desktop had several “View” options that have disappeared in the new version
- The old had an option to store and rename all pdfs in a meaningful way. The new does not seem to show the option
- Most importantly – the older version allowed us to check and remove duplicate items. Not only is this missing, but the Mendeley site actually mentions that they are in the process of adding a feature by which duplicates will not be imported at all.
This – to us sounds like they are forcing users to put up with an “incomplete” software while they are beta-testing a new version! Which would have been okay in itself, but why… when there was a good working older version?
Please note: This blog post does not do a complete comparison of both versions. We only wish to point out the absence of some very important features and let people know that they can continue with the older version
Those who wish to download the older version – Mendeley Desktop – please click here
