DjLu (pronounce DéjàLu, with a French accent) is a simple and free tool to organize research papers.
Our core principle is to keep your library simple and flexible. We want the user to be as independent as possible from DjLu by using simple open formats and solutions.
Access your library from anywhere through the DjLu web application.
You can add papers to your library from BibTex snippets or with standard identifiers such as arXiv or DOI. DjLu will gather the information for you.
Your library is stored in the cloud to be accessible from anywhere and can be synced on your computer to work offline or with your favorite tools.
Organize your papers using fully customized colorful tags about their content, reading status or super-short and super-important notes.
You can write long notes about the paper using the Markdown language, which is used to format text with a very simple and intuitive syntax. Check it out! You can even write equations using LaTeX and we will render them for you.
DjLu keeps your library in your own cloud storage using very simple formats and mechanisms. This means you are not stuck with our solution. Also, everything we do is open source, check out our GitHug page!
DjLu helps you store and sort your paper's PDFs in your own cloud storage. You can sync PDFs on your computer to annotate them with your own software or do it directly in the cloud!
Your library on GitYour paper's library will be stored in your own git repository. If you don't know git, it is a powerful tool to save, sync and track versions of files.
Each paper of your library is a folder containing its BibTex, a JSON file to store extra information about it, and a Markdown file to keep your notes.
Your PDFs on your cloud storageYour PDFs are stored in your own Google Drive account (more storage options are on our TO-DO list). This means we are not handling the file storage ourselves, letting you free and not limiting your library in any way.
This also means you can read and annotate your PDFs from anywhere you want.
Manage everything on the web appTo easily manage your library, we offer a lightweight web application. The simple interface will allow you to browse and edit your papers.
With direct access to your Git repository, the web client is also linked to your cloud storage to help you manage your PDFs.
The web UI is available as an open source project, and you can run it on your server or your personal computer. You are also invited to fork it and make your own customized version. In that case, feel free to send back pull request of interesting features, sharing your code with other users.
Sync and edit on your computerIf you decide to sync your git repository and your cloud storage on your computer, you will be able to work on your library without going through the UI. Of course, any changes you make on your computer and send back to the cloud will be automatically reflected on the UI.
This allows you to work offline with your favorite tools and sync everything back to the cloud seamlessly.
DjLu is an open-source software developed by Rémi Cadène, Micael Carvalho and Thomas Robert, from the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France.
We chose the name DjLu as a nod to DjVu, a digital document format developed at AT&T Labs by a team composed of Yann LeCun, Leon Bottou, Patrick Haffner, Paul Howard, Pascal Vincent, Yoshua Bengio, and Bill Riemers.
