CurTask vs EndNote: references, evidence and writing in one browser project

This page is for postgraduate students and academics who know EndNote, often through their university, and want to see what changes when the reference manager, the analysis and the draft live in one place. EndNote is a long-established reference manager with desktop, web and iOS versions, Cite While You Write for Word and Google Docs, thousands of citation styles and library sharing, and its 2025 release adds an AI Research Assistant for reading individual PDFs. CurTask is built for the stage after collecting: turning a set of papers into a review you can defend, line by line.

At a glance

Beyond the reference list

EndNote is strong at what a reference manager is for: collecting, organising and formatting references. A literature review asks for more: what each study found, with whom, how, and how the studies relate. CurTask puts those steps in one project with three lenses. Library holds and reads your papers, Analysis is where you extract, code and synthesise, and Writing is where the review is drafted with the evidence beside it. One Global Library stores each paper once, and every project draws from it.

A reference without its PDF still counts. CurTask saves it with its details, marks it "No PDF", and lets you add the PDF later from the paper's drawer; the AI analyses only papers that have their PDF, so the others cost no credits. And your work stays portable: on every plan, "Download all my data" gives you one ZIP in open formats, with your files as uploaded, notes and manuscripts as Markdown and Word, and references as BibTeX, RIS and CSL-JSON.

Evidence for every cell, across the whole project

EndNote's Research Assistant helps you understand one paper at a time. CurTask's literature matrix works across all the papers in a project at once. Describe a column in plain words, such as "instrument used" or "main finding", check the credit estimate, and run it. Each value keeps its page number and a verbatim quote that was verified on that page; if the paper doesn't support a value, the cell says "No source found". AI values stay marked Suggested until you accept, edit or restore them, so every entry in your table is one you have approved. Export the matrix to CSV whenever you need it as a spreadsheet.

Analyses also travel with the paper. Bring the same paper into your next project and its earlier analyses come with it, at 0 credits.

Coding and synthesis without a second program

If your review is thematic, CurTask's coding workspace lets you select a passage, apply a code, and see a coloured coding strip beside the text. Add memos to coded passages and reuse codes from other projects; coding by hand is on every plan. On paid plans the AI codes every paper of a project at the push of a button, and you accept or dismiss each suggestion. On the Synthesis Map you build themes from your codes (paid plans can have the AI sort them into categories and themes), mark which papers agree, contradict or extend each other, and send a theme to Writing with its passages.

Writing that keeps the link to the page

CurTask's Writing lens is a modular editor with binder, corkboard and outline views. Cite with @ in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, Nature, AMA or ACS; the bibliography follows and is rebuilt if you change style. Every citation can carry a page number, and the evidence line takes you from the citation back to the exact passage in the PDF. Optional marks show the sentences that have no citation yet. The writing sidebar builds on the analysis you have accepted and shows what contradicts, extends or supports the paragraph you are on, in up to three cards with contradictions first, each with its page and verified quote. Compile to Word, PDF, Markdown or HTML, and know that everything saved itself along the way, even offline.

In the browser, in Malaysia, in ringgit

CurTask runs in the browser, so there is nothing to install. Scanned PDFs are read in English and Malay with the full text kept. Your work is stored in Malaysia, private to you and never used to train AI. The interface is in English and Bahasa Melayu, there is a free plan with no card, and paid plans are in ringgit, including a Student plan. Every AI action shows its cost before it runs.

When EndNote might suit you

If your university provides EndNote, your team shares large reference libraries, or you rely on Cite While You Write inside Word with a specialised journal style, EndNote is a capable, widely supported choice.

Using both

Keep EndNote for your master reference list and move the review itself into CurTask. Drag the PDFs attached to your EndNote references into CurTask: duplicates are recognised and details are filled from each DOI for you to check. CurTask does not import EndNote libraries or RIS/BibTeX files, so bring the PDFs across. A Save to CurTask browser extension for Chrome, Edge and Brave, for saving papers straight from the page you're reading, is coming soon.

Try the free plan with the papers for your next chapter and see the evidence line in action.