1. Create a Mendeley institutional account
Mendeley Institutional Edition offers premium features:
- Additional storage: 100 GB of personal library storage space, and another 100GB of shared library storage space
- Unlimited number of private groups with up to 100 members in each group
The Mendeley Institutional Edition (a free service to the Technion community) is available automatically when creating your account from a Technion IP address (or when using VPN connection). Its premium features stay valid for 12 months after the last login from a Technion IP or by VPN.
More information about VPN connection can be found here.
If you create your account while you are on campus and you have a Technion IP address, go to Mendeley’s website (mendeley.com). You will automatically be identified as a Technion member and will be able to use the Institutional Edition.
On the Mendeley website, click on Create account on the top right corner of the screen (the navigation menu).
By clicking ‘Finish’ you will agree to the terms of use.
You can also use this account to log in to other Elsevier services, including Science Direct or Scopus.
If you already have an Elsevier account, e.g. for Science Direct or Scopus, you can use your existing username and password to sign in to Mendeley Desktop and mendeley.com.
To upgrade an existing Mendeley account, log in to your Mendeley account from a Technion IP address or use VPN connection.
2. Installing Mendeley Desktop
Once you created your Mendeley account (a free account / an institutional account), use the following link to download Mendeley desktop.
Once you installed the program, select ‘Tools’ to install the Web Importer as well as the MS word plugin.
To create a regular Mendeley account, go to Mendeley’s website and choose ‘Create a free account’.
Type your preferred email address and complete the required fields (your first and last name, and a password of your choice).
Click on ‘Get Started’ to register.
Complete your profile by selecting your field of study and academic status (optionally). By clicking ‘Finish’ you will agree to the terms of use.
You can also login to Mendeley using the same credentials that you use for other Elsevier services, such as Scopus or ScienceDirect.
For instructions regarding the Mendeley institutional account, please see: Create a Mendeley institutional account
Once you created your new account, you can download the Mendeley Desktop program.
Use the following link and then follow the instructions on screen.
The Web Importer allows you to import references directly from your browser (from different databases) and into Mendeley Desktop.
To install the web importer, open Mendeley Desktop and click on ‘Tools’ on the program’s menu. Then click ‘Install Web Importer’.
Mendeley Web Importer is a browser extension that is available for Firefox and Chrome browsers. This Mendeley Extension is compatible with the most popular Technion Databases: Engineering Village (Compendex, Inspec, NTIS), Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed and more.
To add reference/s from the result’s page (or journal / publisher website), click on the Web Importer icon (Mendeley logo) on your browser’s toolbar:
From the Web Importer window, select ‘All’ or choose one reference from the list that you want to import. Choose a folder and click ‘Save’.
If a PDF file is available, an icon will appear next to the reference, and the PDF file will be imported to Mendeley with the reference.
The next time you will sync your Mendeley Desktop program, your saved references will appear in the ‘Recently Added’ folder (unless you selected a specific folder, in which case, the references will appear in the folder of your choice).
To add entries manually, click on File > Add Files. From the drop-down menu, select ‘Add Entry Manually’:
A pop-up window will appear. Select the type of material you wish to add (e.g. book, book section, document, journal article, etc.), fill in metadata fields and click on ‘Save’:
Drag and Drop
Individual PDFs or folders can also be drag-and-dropped from your computer into your Mendeley Desktop. Mendeley will try to automatically extract the citation information. Verify that the information is complete and accurate. Any missing details can be added manually by typing them in the relevant fields:
Add Files / Folder
Watch Folder
- Proquest Databases
- SciFinder
- Patbase Express
Proquest Databases
Firefox
Once you downloaded your RIS file, select the ‘Open File’ option to export it directly to your Mendeley Desktop.
The references you add will appear in the ‘Recently Added’ folder in Mendeley Desktop.
Chrome
Once the download is completed, select the ‘Show in folder’ option by right-clicking the file on you Download manager (at the bottom of the screen):
Drag-and-drop the relevant file from your downloads folder into Mendeley Desktop.
SciFinder
On the new window, select the option ‘Citation export format (*.ris)’ then click ‘Export’ once more:
Firefox
Once you downloaded your RIS file, select the ‘Open File’ option to export it directly to your Mendeley Desktop.
The references you add will appear in the ‘Recently Added’ folder in Mendeley Desktop.
Chrome
Once the download is completed, select the ‘Show in folder’ option by right-clicking the file on you Download manager (at the bottom of the screen). Drag-and-drop the relevant file from your downloads folder into Mendeley Desktop.
Patbase Express
From your references list, check all the references that you wish to export, then click ‘Export’:
Login with your email address as required:
Firefox
Once you downloaded your RIS file, select the ‘Open File’ option to export it directly to your Mendeley Desktop.
The references you add will appear in the ‘Recently Added’ folder in Mendeley Desktop.
Chrome
Once the download is completed, select the ‘Show in folder’ option by right-clicking the file on you Download manager (at the bottom of the screen).
Drag-and-drop the relevant file from your downloads folder into Mendeley Desktop.
Multiple references
If there are multiple references, add them one by one to the folder:
Then go to ‘Folder View’ and check each reference that you wish to export and click ‘Export’.
Firefox
A pop-up window will appear. Select ‘RIS’ from the list and click ‘Save’.
During the download, select the ‘Open File’ option to export it directly to your Mendeley Desktop.
Saved articles will appear in the ‘Recently Added’ folder.
Chrome
Choose the ‘Show in folder’ option by right-clicking the Download manager at the bottom of the screen. Then drag the relevant file from the downloads’ folder into your Mendeley Desktop.
A single reference
To save one reference, click on the Mendeley logo:
To back up any changes you make in Mendeley Desktop, it is important to sync the data to the cloud.
Syncing is recommended especially if you work on more than one device, and if you use private groups or the PDF reader.
The sync command on Mendeley Desktop works as a ‘Save’ commend. Click ‘Sync’ (arrows icon) on your Mendeley Desktop menu:
4. Organizing your Mendeley Desktop library
To organize your references, use folders and sub-folders:
- Click on the ‘Folders’ icon on the top-left corner of the screen to create a new folder and name it.
- To create sub-folders for existing folders, open the main folder and click on the ‘Folders’ icon.
To add references to the new folder or the new sub-folder, drag the references from the ‘Recently Added’ folder.
* References can be filed in more than one folder.
Tags
You can assign tags to your references in order to organize them more easily.
To add a new tag / several tags to the reference that you’ve added to your Mendeley desktop, click on the field ‘Tags’ on the pane of record’s details (the right side of the screen):
To find all the references that are tagged with the same tag, select ‘Filter by My Tags’ from the drop-down list on the left panel and select the relevant tag:
Some of the references that you import to Mendeley Desktop might already include tags.
Favorites
Click the star icon to select your favorite documents:
Read / Unread
Click on the green dots to mark documents as read or unread:
To change the records view (middle pane) from references view to citation view, select View > Library as Citations:
To change the citation style, select ‘Citation Style’ and choose the relevant style from the menu:
To sort your references by the document type (.pdf, MS Word, etc.), authors, title, year, publication or the date they were added to Mendeley Desktop, click on the relevant category:
To add / change details for a specific record, click on the relevant field on the ‘Details’ tab:
To attach a PDF file to its metadata, scroll down to the field ‘Files’, click on ‘Add File’, select the PDF document and click ‘Open’.
To check where Mendeley has saved a PDF file on your computer, right-click on the pdf icon and select ‘Open Containing Folder’:
Once PDFs have been added to your Mendeley Desktop, you can click the PDF icon or double-click on the reference to read, highlight and annotate the PDF document. The reference file will open in the PDF viewer on a separate tab:
Your annotations can be viewed in the ‘Notes’ tab, next to the ‘Details’ tab on the right pane:
5. Creating citations and bibliography
The MS Work plug-in is required in order to add citations and bibliography to your academic work. On Mendeley Desktop, select ‘Tools’ > ‘Install MS Word Plug In’:
A pop-up window will appear to indicate a successful installation. Click ‘OK’ and open your MS Word program:
The Mendeley Cite-O-Matic plug-in will appear on the ‘References’ tab in MS Word:
To insert a citation, place the cursor where you want the citation in the document and click ‘Insert Citation’.
Next, type a search term (or the author’s name) to find the citation that you need:
Or (advanced) choose ‘Go to Mendeley’ and select one or more references from the list. Then click ‘Cite’:
To add the bibliography, place the cursor on the last page of your document and click the ‘Insert Bibliography’ button (on the Mendeley Cite-O-Matic).
Any new citations that you will add to your work, will also be added automatically to the bibliography.
To change the bibliographic style, go to ‘Styles’ on the Mendeley toolbar and choose a bibliographic style from the styles list.
More Styles
To download more styles to your Word list of styles, click on ‘More styles’:
On the new window, search for the relevant style and download it:
Edit Related Styles
The title of the new style will include your name: Style name – Your Name. To change the title, type a new title in the field Info > Title (right below the citation and bibliography examples)
To make changes, click on the relevant part of the inline citations or bibliography entry on the left pane.
The tool will display the editable options.
Select ‘Author (macro)’ and choose ‘Name’ in the ‘Names’ section:
6. Troubleshooting
When you fail to sign-in to Mendeley with your username and password or when you notice that your Mendeley desktop is not synchronized with your online account, clearing your browser’s cookies might help. You can use this guide which explains how to clear your browser’s cookies, or contact us if you need any further assistance.
While it’s simple to import the bibliography of articles from databases, Google Scholar, the publisher’s websites or by using the PDF files (drag & drop), importing the details of books and book sections may not always be simple; you can either add your references manually, or follow one of theses two options:
The Libraries Search System (EDS)
You can use the Technion Libraries’ search engine in order to find the bibliographic information about books and book sections, and export the data as a RIS file.
Other Sources
- If you were unable to find the book/book section on EDS, you can try using other catalogs. We recommend using an international library catalog such as Worldcat.
- You can also import details from the publisher’s website (excellent for book chapters):
1. Go to the publisher’s website and find your book version
2. Click on the Web Importer to add the data to your Mendeley Desktop - If the material is an eBook, Mendeley may be able to identify the different book chapters for a more accurate citation.