Guides for researchers who read papers on an iPad — reference libraries, PDF annotation, and Apple Pencil workflows.
Reading a paper from the first line to the last is slow and easy to lose the point in. S. Keshav's three-pass method reads it three times with a different goal each time: a 5–10 minute bird's-eye view, up to an hour on the content, and a deep third pass only for the papers that matter. What to do in each pass, the five Cs, how to use the passes for a literature survey, and a 3-minute video that shows them on a tablet.
Read the article →There is no official Mendeley app for Android, and there has not been one since March 2021. Here are the ways to read your Mendeley library on an Android phone, tablet or E Ink device in 2026, what each one is good at, and what happens to your notes.
Read the article →Rectoly 5.1 for iPad, iPhone and Mac and 2.1 for Windows, Linux and Android add two AI features that run on the machine in front of you. Organize with AI groups the notes you wrote across many papers by topic and writes only the headings. Paper cards write each paper’s research question, method, data, findings and stated limitations into a literature review table, every sentence checked against the text and carrying its page. Nothing is uploaded — or bring your own API key.
Read the article →Rectoly 2.0 for Windows, Linux and Android and the new iPad and Mac release (5.0.0) translate research papers with an AI model that runs on your own computer, tablet or phone. What on-device translation means, how fast it is, which languages it covers, and why your paper never leaves the machine.
Read the article →The Zotero app for iPad does not open linked files. Why, the three ways round it, and what each one does to your highlights and handwriting, for PDFs that ZotFile or ZotMoov keep in Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive.
Read the article →Four ways to read and annotate Mendeley papers on an iPad, compared on whether highlights get back to Mendeley, Apple Pencil, offline reading, price and whether the app is still maintained. Written by Rectoly's developer, with every fact checked against the App Store.
Read the article →Four ways to read and annotate Zotero papers on an iPad, compared on what comes back to Zotero, Apple Pencil, price and whether the app is still maintained. Written by Rectoly's developer, with every fact checked against the App Store and the Zotero forums.
Read the article →Rectoly for Mendeley and Rectoly for Zotero now run on Windows and Mac, and one purchase covers your computer, tablet and phone. Here is what the desktop versions do, what they do not do, and what they cost.
Read the article →Zotero's annotation format has a slot for freehand ink, which most reference managers do not. Here is what that means for reading and marking up papers on an iPad.
Read the article →What happens to a highlight, a note, or an Apple Pencil stroke after you make it on an iPad — where Mendeley can store it, where it cannot, and why.
Read the article →There is no official Mendeley app for iPad. Here are the options for reading your Mendeley library on an iPad in 2026, and what each one is good at.
Read the article →Mendeley retired its mobile app on March 15, 2021. What was announced, what it changed for people who read on a tablet, and what the options are in 2026.
Read the article →Three ways to get a PDF from your Mendeley library onto an iPad — read it in Safari, export and transfer the file, or sync your library — with the steps for each.
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