We are very excited to be sharing our Papers love with even more people this Valentines day. For over two years we have secretly worked on a version of Papers for Windows. Now, the time has finally arrived that we are ready for a pre-release.
Papers has an award-winning, intuitive user interface, and we wanted to bring this same ease-of-use to Papers for Windows, while preserving a traditional Windows look. It also has much of the same core features as Papers2 for Mac, but there are some differences. Although we want to have both versions aligned as much as possible, some features are still under development in Papers for Windows. When first trying Papers for Windows, it is important to keep these differences in mind, and they are listed in more detail here.
A version of Papers for Windows has been the topic of many requests from both current users, and those who would like to become Papers users (but didn’t want to buy a Mac). After our Papers2 release, the requests for a Windows version kept pouring in, and we are happy that we can finally announce we have been working on this exciting new release for some time already in collaboration with Scimatic, which is based in Toronto, Canada.
Much like Papers2, Papers for Windows was built from the ground up. This brought with it the challenges you can expect from cross-platform development, as well as the occasional surprise. We made the decision to launch Papers for Windows as a public pre-release, after our beta trials, to make sure any bugs can be ironed out before our official release date in March. At this time, one feature that has not been sufficiently tested is Mac to Windows (and visa versa) compatibility, where a user can point both versions of Papers to the same library. Although this may seem relatively straightforward, from a programming perspective there are a number of difficulties with implementing this functionality and we want to make sure we can sufficiently test this internally, as well as expose it to ‘real world’ situations Papers users will face.
The Papers for Windows journey has been a long and exciting one. Recently, this included two smaller-scale beta releases and some intense in-house testing where we were able to streamline the program more, avoid some major bugs, and made some major updates and changes. However, the best part of the journey is starting now. We hope Papers for Windows will allow some of our current Papers users to take their libraries to work, or home, where this was previously not possible. We also hope to welcome new Papers users who will finally be able to enjoy Papers for the first time on their PC.
~ The Mekentosj Team
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Oh man… I was hopi g for something Mac related… You guys have been good with catching up ever since the release of Papers 2 for Mac (qualitywize compared to Papers 1). However, I wish you you’d continue to focus exclusively on your Mac and iPad version.
Papers Mac still does not feel polished and lime a true Mac app. Some of the icons are simply uggly and BibTeX export ist a mess.
Papers iPad needs some neat note taking a la Remarks or Pentimate added and a better way to navigate between papers. When you’ve got a PDF opened, there does not seem to be a way to get back to a search result, if you have opened the PDF from that list of search results.
The Papers apps all have great ideas and do their job. However I never experience the kind of thoughtful implementation and finish I expect as a Mac user and fan of indy software.
Hope you keep up the good work and don’t spend too much time on that Windows fling… That OS is doomed anyway.
Felix: no worry, the Windows effort is separate from the Mac and iOS effort, with the awesome guys at Scimatic doing all the programming.
I’m just curious: how did you manage to port to Windows an application that uses a lot of Mac OS X technology?
Also, I cannot avoid asking: any plans for a Linux port?
A Windows version is fine
What is more important is an iCloud (or Dropbox, or whatever service, even Skydrive…) sync!!!
Awesome news! I can’t wait to try out Papers for Windows — Thanks for thinking about the rest of us . All the best!
im glad you guys decided to do this! considering I’m a primary mac users I should not care too much, but this opens the way for new users, greater interactions on the collaboration features etc.
I do not agree at all with felix jung’s comments above. keep up the good work and get papers to all platforms. science is not about fanboyism
THANK YOU SO MUCH! I am about to enter graduate school and have been thirsting for a good paper-organizing program. And here it is! I will be buying it very soon!
The beginning of the end?
I don’t want to sound too dramatic, but every app that I’ve used that started out Mac only and made a Windows version ended up making their Mac version second class or dropping it altogether. I understand this, as the Windows market is bigger so there’s more opportunity for profit, but it’s disappointing to lose a good app. As you guys find that you’re making more money on the Windows side and start to neglect the Mac app, would you consider open sourcing it or something so that we can keep it updated and improving?
Definitely on our list!
Linux please!