Installation of Microsoft Word plugin in Mendeley

I recently installed the free reference manager Mendeley. The desktop application is great so far with many nice features such as collaboration, a web app, iPad app, and a citation plug-in for Microsoft Word. However, when I tried to install the MS Word plugin on my computer, running a 64-bit Windows 7 Professional operating system and Microsoft Word 2010, the plug-in would not show up in the ribbon under References as  “Mendeley Cite-O-Matic”.

I searched the Mendeley support forum and found out that I was not alone having a problem with the automatic installation of the MS Word plug-in from the Tools menu. The solution for me was a slight modification of one of the Mendeley agent’s suggested solutions:

1) Install MS Word plugin from the Tools menu in Mendeley Desktop.

2) Browse to C:\Users\[YourUserProfile]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\Startup

(The path might be slightly different on your machine. Remember also that the AppData folder is hidden. To make this folder visible, click Organize in the window toolbar -> Folder and search options -> View tab -> Hidden files and folders -> Show hidden files, folders, and drives)

3) Copy the file Mendeley-1.7.1.dotm

(Alternatively, you may also find this file in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Mendeley Desktop\wordPlugin folder)

4) Browse to C:\Users\[YourUserProfile]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\Autostart

5) Paste the file in the root of the folder.

6) Done!

The solution was to put the global template Mendeley-1.7.1.dotm in the Autostart folder instead of the Startup folder, which seems to be the normal folder for global templates from what I have read.

Please comment and let me know if this was helpful to you.

Cheers,

Samuel