Skip to Main Content

EndNote X7 and X8 Tutorial Guides: Advanced Tips (Desktop)

Created by Health Science Librarians

Remove Duplicate References

To remove duplicate references:

  1. In the Groups panel in the left column, click on All References to display all the references in your library.
  2. From the menu bar, select References > Find Duplicates.
  3. If you have duplicate references in your library, the Find Duplicates dialog box will appear.  For each set of duplicates, you have the following options:
    • Click Keep This Record to save the preferred reference and discard the other in the trash.
    • Click Skip to leave both references in the library. The references will be placed in a temporary Duplicate References group for later review.

Find Duplicates

Output Styles

What is an Output Style?

An Output Style is a template that controls the appearance of in-text citations, footnotes and bibliographies in your document. Some are associated with journals, such as Nature, or with publishers, such as American Psychological Association (APA). The most common Output Styles are pre-installed in EndNote, but you can download additional styles if necessary. You can add or edit styles using the Style Manager.

To Open the Style Manager

  1. Select Edit > Output Styles > Open Style Manager... from the menu bar in the EndNote library window.
  2. The Style Manager window will open.

Open Style Manager

The Styles Menu

The Styles menu is a list of 'favorite' styles that appears in the toolbar at the top of the EndNote library window and in the EndNote menu in Microsoft Word, providing easy access to the styles that you use commonly.


Styles Menu

To add an Output Style to the Styles menu

  1. Open the Style Manager.
  2. Find the style(s) that you want. 
  3. Click the box to the left of the style's name to select it as one of your favorites. 
  4. Close the Style Manager by clicking the close button in the upper right corner of window or selecting File > Close Style Manager from the menu bar.
  5. The styles that you have selected will now appear in the Styles menu.

Style Manager

Edit an Output Style

  1. Open Style Manager.
  2. Click on the style that you wish to edit.
  3. Click the Edit button. The Style window will open.

    Style Window

  4. The left column of the window displays information about the style.  Click on the item you want to change and make the desired changes.
  5. Once you have made your changes, select File > Save As from the menu bar.  Save a copy of the revised style.  Do NOT overwrite the original template.
  6. Close the Style window by clicking the close button in the upper right corner of window or selecting File > Close Style from the menu bar.

Note: Before you make any changes, we strongly recommend that you read about formatting Output Styles.  In your EndNote library, click on the Help button in the toolbar along the top of the window and search for 'Output Styles' to find out more about them.

Back to Top

Find Full Text

What is Find Full Text?

  • EndNote uses data stored in your references to search the Web for the corresponding full text file as a PDF or URL.  Once found, the file is automatically downloaded and attached to the appropriate reference.

Connecting Find Full Text to the UNC Libraries

The Find Full Text feature works best when your computer is connected to the UNC campus network.  To improve retrieval of full text files when off-campus, do the following:

  1. In your EndNote library, select Edit > Preferences from the menu bar.  The EndNote Preferences dialog box will open.
  2. In the left column, click on Find Full Text.
  3. Check all four boxes for Web of Science, DOI, PubMed, and OpenURL.
  4. Copy and paste the following text into the field called OpenURL Path: http://vb3lk7eb4t.search.serialssolutions.com/
  5. Verify that the information in the dialog box matches the box picture below.
  6. Click the Apply button.  Then, click OK.

Find Full Text checkboxes are all checked and

To Find Full Text

  1. In your EndNote library, click on the reference(s) for which you would like to find full text files. 
  2. Click on the Find Full Text button Find Full Text in the toolbar along the top.  A box will appear with EndNote's Find Full Text copyright and usage notice.  Click OK.
  3. A search script will appear under Find Full Text in the Groups panel in the left column.  This indicates the number of PDFs or URLs that EndNote was able to find.
  4. Click on Found PDF or Found URL in the Groups panel in the left column to view the references for which full text files were found.
  5. The PDFs Endnote finds will be automatically downloaded and attached to the appropriate reference.  Endnote finds more articles when you are on-campus and less when you are off-campus.

Find Full Text

 

Not Finding Full Text?

You may not get the full text even if UNC Libraries provide access to the article and you are on campus.  There are a few reasons for this:

  • EndNote may not have a find full text agreement with the publisher of the journal you need, even if the UNC library has access.
  • The article you are looking for may be too new for the PDF link to be available.
  • The article you need may be buried in a large full-text database that does not allow individual articles to be found.
  • The article you are looking for is in a supplementary issue of a journal.

If you are off-campus, you can try logging into a campus VPN and attempting to download the full text while connecting to the VPN.

If the full text is not found using Find Full Text, then you can manually attach the PDF to your references.  Some aggregator databases, such as ScienceDirect or  EBSCO databases such as CINAHL or PsycInfo, provide a URL that will take you to the full text instead of providing you a PDF.

Ebsco link in the URL field

Clicking on the URL will allow you to access the article by entering your Onyen and password.  If there is no URL, you can try typing the article title into PubMed or Google Scholar and using the Find@UNC button to locate the PDF or to request the article through Interlibrary Loan. 

You may want to save the PDF in the same folder as those EndNote locates automatically.  To do that, find the .Data file with the same name as your library, open the PDF folder, and save the PDF.

PDF folder within test library.Data

Once you save the PDF file to your computer, you can attach it to the EndNote citation with the paper clip icon found in the top tabs of the reference window.

Back to Top

Working with PDFs

In EndNote, you can open and annotate a PDF file using the PDF Viewer Panel.

Opening the PDF Viewer Panel

  1. Double click on a reference with an attached PDF file (indicated by the presence of a paperclip symbol).  This will open the reference window. 
  2. Click on the PDF tab above the toolbar.  The PDF Viewer Panel will open.

Using the PDF Viewer Panel

The toolbar at the top of the PDF Viewer Panel has several options that allow you to add notes, highlight text and find words and phrases within the PDF document.  You can hover your cursor over an icon to view text explaining its function.

PDF Viewer Panel

Add Notes

  1. Use your cursor to highlight the text in the PDF document where you wish to add a note.
  2. Click on the Sticky Note button sticky note button in the toolbar at the top of the PDF Viewer Panel.  A Sticky Note icon will appear next to the highlighted text.
  3. Double-click on the Sticky Note icon to display a text box.  Type your notes in the text box.
  4. Click the Save PDF button  in the toolbar to save your changes.
  5. To delete a note, click on the Sticky Note that you wish to remove and press the Delete key on your keyboard.

Highlight Text

  1. Use your cursor to highlight the text in the PDF document that you wish to highlight.
  2. Click on the Highlight Text button  in the toolbar at the top of the PDF Viewer Panel.  The selected text will be highlighted in yellow.
  3. Click the Save PDF button  in the toolbar to save your changes.

Using the Find Feature

  1. Enter words or phrases in the search box in the toolbar at the top of the PDF Viewer Panel.  The Find feature searches within the PDF document that is currently open.
  2. Click on the Next and Previous buttons to navigate to the next or previous instance of your search word or phrase.

 

Back to Top

Create Bibliography

Sometimes you may want to create a document that contains just a bibliography, with no citations. Here is one way to do it.

Creating a Bibliography without Citations

  1. Select the Output Style in which you wish your bibliography to appear from the Styles menu in the toolbar.  The Output Style that you select determines how your references are sorted and formatted in the bibliography. 
  2. Select the references that you wish to include in your bibliography. 
  3. Select Edit > Copy Formatted from the menu bar OR right-click on the selected references and choose Copy Formatted from the menu that appears.
  4. Open a Microsoft Word document.  Place your cursor where you want your bibliography to appear. 
  5. Click on the Paste button in the Word toolbar or select Ctrl + V on your keyboard.  Your bibliography will appear in the Word document.

Back to Top

Merging Libraries

Method 1: Import EndNote Library

  1. Open the EndNote library into which you will be importing.
  2. From the File menu, select Import.
  3. Select Choose file to locate the EndNote library that you wish to import
  4. Select EndNote Library from the Import Option drop down list.
  5. Select Import.

Import file dialog

Method 2: Copy and Paste

  1. Select the references that you wish to move to another library.
  2. Select Edit > Copy OR Ctrl + C on your keyboard.
  3. Open the library to which you wish to add the references and select Edit > Paste OR Ctrl + V on your keyboard.

Back to Top

Move Text with Citations

  1. If you want to move text around within the same document, you can cut and past as you would ordinarily do.
  2. To move text from one document to another, do the following:
  • select the text you want to move. Then open the Endnote menu and select Convert Citations and Bibliography>>Convert to Unformatted Citations (see above).
  • Cut or copy your text and paste it into the new document.
  • Open the Endnote menu in your new document, and click Update Citations and Bibliography  (see below). (If you are using Endnote Desktop, you might have to open your library file for this to work. If you are using Endnote Online, Word may prompt you to sign in).
  • Your citations will be formatted in your new document, and Endnote will create a bibliography at the end of the document.