ContextCat vs Rectoly for Mendeley

ContextCat helps you learn a language by reading things you actually want to read. Open a news article, a book from the library, a web page or your own PDF. When a word stops you, tap it. You get a short explanation of what it means in that exact sentence, written in your own language. No switching apps, no guessing which dictionary meaning fits. TAP ANY WORD See the meaning that fits the sentence, the word type, and how the word is built. Select a few words to translate the whole phrase. TODAY'S NEWS Each morning the Today tab has a new edition of real articles: world, science, tech, culture, sport, food and travel. Most stories are in English, and for several languages there is also a section from outlets in that language. Tap a headline and the article opens in the app, with every word one tap away. LISTEN WHILE YOU READ Natural voices read your books, PDFs and texts aloud, sentence by sentence, and highlight where you are. Pause, go back a sentence, or slow it down. ASK ABOUT WHAT YOU READ Not sure what a paragraph means? Ask. Answers come from the text in front of you. You can also ask for a quick quiz to check you understood it. WORDS THAT STAY WITH YOU Words you look up are saved for you. Study cards bring them back right before you would forget them, and you can watch the number of words you know grow. READ YOUR OWN THINGS Open a PDF, add a link to a web article, or paste text. You can also share a link or a PDF to ContextCat from Safari, Files and other apps. Everything you open stays in your library. NEW HERE? A short first read and a quick tour show you how it works. JUST WANT TO READ? Choose reading only if you read in your own language and want help with long or tricky documents. You still get listening and questions about the text, without the study tools. Explanations come in your language, in any of the 39 the app supports. SUBSCRIPTION ContextCat is free to try. The free plan includes a limited number of explanations, imports and questions. Premium lifts these limits. - Choose a monthly or yearly plan. Both renew automatically. - Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase. - Your plan renews unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the current period ends. - Manage or cancel anytime in your Apple Account settings. Privacy Policy: https://contextcatapp.blogspot.com/2025/06/contextcat-privacy-policy-english.html Terms of Use: https://contextcatapp.blogspot.com/2025/06/terms-and-conditions.html EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Rectoly is the research-focused PDF reader built for Mendeley users. Your library stays in Mendeley — Rectoly makes reading and annotating on iPhone, iPad and Mac a genuine pleasure. READING MODE Academic papers are usually typeset in two columns, which makes them hard to read on a phone or in a narrow split view. Reading Mode reflows the paper into a single, clean text column — without losing the original PDF. ANNOTATE IN READING MODE Unlike other readers, Rectoly lets you highlight, underline, add sticky notes, and write with Apple Pencil — all while staying in Reading Mode. Your handwriting even scales with the text size. Filter annotations by colour and by kind. ON-DEVICE TRANSLATION Read an English paper in your own language, in Reading Mode and on the PDF page. Translation runs on this device; the paper is never sent to a translation service. Translations are saved to your Mendeley library for your other devices (you can turn this off in Settings). The app's translation model (about 2.5 GB) needs 8 GB of memory or more. Translates English papers into the app's 19 other display languages: Hindi by the system's translator (iOS 26 or later), all the rest by the app's own model. READ ALOUD Hear the text in Reading Mode, in the system voice or the VoiceOver one. SOFT DARK A paper-friendly dark mode that dims the page itself, not just the interface. WORKBENCH (iPad and Mac) Pin Figure 1 beside the text and keep reading — no more scrolling back and forth between a figure and the paragraph that cites it. RESEARCH THEMES Send a passage to a theme, with its source. Keep the theme beside the paper, or open it as a sheet. Export as Markdown or Word (.docx). ACROSS PAPERS The library column has a new Across papers tab: search the annotations, the text and your handwriting in your whole library at once. FIGURES, TABLES AND A COMPARISON TABLE Figures to PNG, tables to CSV — and one table comparing many papers' abstracts, methods and results. YOUR MANUSCRIPT BESIDE THE PAPER Open the document you are writing (.docx, .doc, .odt, .rtf, Markdown, plain text — password-protected ones too) in a column next to the paper. It re-reads the file every time you save. CITATIONS AND NOTES, OUT OF THE APP Copy with page, copy BibTeX or citation keys, and a Notes folder for Obsidian and others — with keyboard shortcuts you can change. MENDELEY SYNC Sign in with your Mendeley account and read your library directly on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Highlights and text notes are saved into the PDF and written back to Mendeley. OPEN FROM WEBDAV Open PDFs kept on a WebDAV server such as Nextcloud or your university's storage — and add them to Mendeley from there. A LIBRARY THAT STAYS OUT OF YOUR WAY - PDFs download only when you open them, saving storage - Downloaded papers work fully offline — flights, commutes, conferences, field work APPLE PENCIL, PRESERVED Handwritten notes are backed up with iCloud, kept with a version history you can restore, and exportable as JSON for long-term preservation. Your research is never locked inside Rectoly. 14-DAY FREE TRIAL → ONE-TIME PURCHASE Try every Pro feature free for 14 days. Unlock with a single one-time payment — no subscription, no recurring charges, no lock-in. Rectoly is an independent app and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Mendeley Ltd. or Elsevier. A Mendeley account is required to use this app.