Getting Started #

This article introduces how to use Paperlib.

Library Folder #

Open the preference window, choose a folder to store all your paper PDF files and the local database files.

⚠️ If you are going to use the cloud sync feature, we recommend you to choose a shared folder such as Onedrive, Dropbox etc.

See Library Folder for more details (file renaming etc.).

Metadata Scrapers #

We build a data pipeline to scrape the metadata from many databases for each paper. Many metadata scrapers are available. You can select your preferred scrapers in the preference window.

⚠️ Please choose a proper scraper combination for the best retrieval rate.

See Metadata Scrapers for more details.

Import New Papers #

Drag and drop PDF files onto the main view of Paperlib. You can also import a paper from a website by clicking the browser extension.

Metadata Retrieval #

The metadata of each imported paper will be automaticlly scraped. Some papers may match nothing in the databases, thereby resulting in an empty/wrong paper item. You can manually edit its metadata by pressing CTRL/CMD + E or by clicking the edit button. Providing one of the title / DOI / arxivID and click the Scrape button to complete the rest is enough for most cases.

See Metadata Scrapers for more details (custom scraper etc.).

Open / Preview a Paper #

• Open a paper: double click an item in the main view.
• Preview a paper: press Space or switch to the Table and Reader view.

See View PDF for more details.

Tags / Folders #

• Add: open the edit view, add or create your preferred tags and folders. You can also drag-drop an item to a tag/folder in the sidebar to add it to the tag/folder.
• Colorize: right click a tag or a folder in the sidebar list can change its color.

By default, the tag is the inherent attributes of a paper such as computer-vision. The folder indicates the attributes given by users such as good-writing. But you can use them in any way you like.

See Tags / Folders for more details.

Attach Supplementary Files #

Drag and drop some files onto the detail view (right panel) of a paper to attach supplementaries.

See Supplementary Files for more details.

Locate Available PDF #

For a paper without a PDF file, click the button called 'Locate' in the details panel to download the PDF file from internet.

Paperlib provides some PDF downloaders such as arXiv, Unpaywall etc.. For xxx-hub (that very famous paper download website XD), we cannot directly provide it because of the legal issue. You can manually input the URL of it in the preference - downloader to use it.

See PDF Downloaders for more details.

Search #

Paperlib provides three search modes: general, fulltext, and advanced mode. Click the button in the search bar to switch between them.

See Search for more details.

Quick Copy-paste Plugin #

When you are writing a paper, you can use the Quick Copy-paste Plugin to copy-paste the BibTex of a paper in your library. Just press CTRL/CMD+SHIFT+I, search a paper, and press Enter. Now, the BibTex is copied to your clipboard. You can also link this plugin to a folder. All papers copied by this plugin will be added to that folder. Thus, you can export all the BibTex once you finish writing your draft paper.

The Microsoft Word plugin is in Beta now.

See Quick Copy-paste Plugin for more details.

Subscribe to RSS Feeds #

You can subscribe to RSS feeds to get the latest papers in your research topic. To add a new RSS feed, switch to the Feeds view and click the + button in the sidebar.

How to use the arXiv RSS?

https://arxiv.org/help/rss

https://arxiv.org/help/api/user-manual#search_query_and_id_list

Many journals provide RSS feeds. Please refer to their official website to learn how to use RSS.

Cloud Sync #

See Cloud Sync for more details.