This part of the guide provides an introduction to using Mendeley Desktop and Microsoft Word effectively. Read the text below to verify you have everything set up and ready to go. Then watch the video below to learn how to insert and manage citations in your document.

To create and format your citations and bibliography when working with Mendeley Desktop in Word, we need to ensure that Mendeley and Word are "talking" to each other.

Step 1.   Install the MS Word Plugin via Mendeley Desktop

Step 2.   Check that the Mendeley functionality is visible under the References tab in Word

For guidance on installing and getting the most functionality from the MS Word Plugin, see Mendeley's Using the Citation Plugin Guide.

Top tip: A reference management tool can save you hours of work by automating the process of citing sources in your document!  Save yourself a lot of angst by becoming very familiar with your referencing style/s so that you:

• know how to format your citations manually if required
• have the knowledge to fix any incorrectly auto-formatted citations (no reference management tool is perfect!)
• are able to tweak your referencing style/s if required.

Next up, learn how to sync your library so that you have access to all your sources, folders and documents on the go.

This video below shows you have to save time on your work by automatically generating your citations and bibliography in a few simple steps.

For guidance on adding, merging and editing citations, see Mendeley's guide to Using the Citation Plug-in. 

Alternatively, move on to the next tab of this guide to discover how to sync your library.