Sonny Software

I've decided to have a go at using LaTeX for my thesis (using the nice looking Latexian as a front end). I've previously used Mellel + Bookends, so all my references are in Bookends already. Now, I quite like Bookends, so I'd rather not export my entire reference library to a .bib file and switch to management in BibDesk. Nor do I want to put BibTeX formatted copies of Bookends references in the actual document itself (which appears to defeat the purpose of the reference manager). What I'd really like to do is what Mendeley calls BibTeX syncing, which basically mirrors the database to a .bib file, and keeps it up to date when changes are made in Mendeley.

I realise that this might be a niche feature, but since I found out that I can use Sweave to include dynamic statistical output from R directly in my thesis document, I'm determined to at least see what a LaTeX + R + Sweave (plus whatever bibliography manager works) workflow looks like. At this point in time, it looks like I'll have to switch to BibDesk (or Mendeley I guess), but I think a BibTeX syncing feature would make Bookends a viable part of a LaTeX-based workflow.

Bookends won't do that automatically (and I don't know about Mendeley, but if you have thousands of references I'm sure it would introduce an unacceptable delay if a new .bib file had to be generated each time you added/edited a field). But of course you can output your database as a .bib file on demand using Biblio -> Bibliography -> Export to Disk in BibTeX markup, using the BibTeX format.

Jon
Sonny Software