How to link Papers to your Overleaf account

Note: ReadCube is the enterprise version of Papers and ReadCube subscribers should follow the same procedure listed below to connect a library to an Overleaf account. If you have questions or issues, please contact your ReadCube account manager.

Introduction

This article shows how to link Papers to your Overleaf account and use it to add references to your project.

Reference manager integration is a premium feature. Overleaf premium features are available to participants in Overleaf Commons, members of group subscriptions, and owners of individual subscriptions.

Note: If you don’t have a paid Overleaf subscription you can always export .bib data from Papers, or other reference manager software, and upload the resulting .bib file to your Overleaf project.

How to link Papers to your Overleaf account

  1. Select Account then Account Settings from the drop-down menu:

    2. Image showing how to access Overleaf's account settings

  2. Scroll down the list of account settings to the Reference Managers section and locate the Papers Integration option.

    3. Image showing account setting to link Papers to your Overleaf account

  3. Select the Link button. If you are currently logged in to your Papers account the linking process will complete seamlessly, otherwise you will need to log into Papers to complete linking it to your Overleaf account.
  4. Your Overleaf Account Settings will be updated to confirm your Papers account has been linked to your Overleaf account. Note that you can unlink your Papers account at any time.

    5. Image showing how to unlink Papers from your Overleaf account

How to add references to your Overleaf project using Papers

After linking Papers to your Overleaf account, you can add references to your project in two ways.

  1. You can import reference collections from your Papers libraries. This process creates a read-only .bib file in your Overleaf project, which can be refreshed to keep it synched with your Papers account. Watch the video below for a step-by-step demonstration of importing references from Papers.
  2. You can import individual references from your Papers account by configuring advanced reference search to look for references in Papers. Any reference found in Papers, and subsequently cited, is added to an editable .bib file contained in your Overleaf project.

This article focuses on option 1, bulk import of references to create a non-editable .bib file. To learn about importing individual references into editable .bib files, see Configuring advanced reference search to use Papers.

Importing Papers references into an Overleaf project

The following video demonstrates Overleaf’s integration with Papers, showing how to import references to create a new read-only (non-editable) .bib file called references.bib.

Updating project .bib files produced by reference managers

Reference managers, including Papers, offer two ways to create .bib files in your project.

  1. A bulk import of an entire reference library, or one of its reference groups.
    • This method adds read-only (non-editable) .bib files to your Overleaf project. Any changes or updates to the read-only .bib files must be made in the reference manager and transferred to Overleaf by selecting the Refresh button at the top of the .bib file preview. Refreshing imported .bib files is demonstrated in the video above.
  2. Importing individual references from a reference manager using advanced reference search.
    • References added to a project .bib file using advanced reference search remain fully editable.

Further reading