Reference managementBeginner
Reference Management and Paper Writing
A complete workflow from collecting literature, managing PDFs and reading notes to drafting the paper and inserting references.
ZoteroLibreOffice
1–2 hours 5 stepsView workflow
Free, open-source office suite for documents, spreadsheets, presentations and basic data organisation.
LibreOffice is a mature free, open-source office suite including Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base and other components. In research it can be used for writing documents, organising tables, making presentations and converting formats, and it is one of the main free alternatives to Microsoft Office.
Use cases: paper drafts, data table organisation, presentations, office file compatibility, spreadsheet calculations
A complete workflow from collecting literature, managing PDFs and reading notes to drafting the paper and inserting references.
Use free LibreOffice Base and MySQL to build a simple daily report entry and query system for a small team of about 10–20 people. Suits small companies, research groups, labs and project teams replacing paper reports and scattered Excel files at low cost.
Systematically check the manuscript text, references, figures, tables, supplementary materials and PDF files before formal submission to reduce formatting errors and rework.
For everyday research users: start from an Excel or LibreOffice table and work through data cleaning, statistical analysis, exporting results and preparing paper tables and figures.