The following are some of the more commonly-asked questions about using EndNote. The answers were written with EndNote X1 and X2 in mind - however, some of the answers may apply to earlier versions of the software. Other questions may be answered on the support pages available on the EndNote website or by contacting EndNote Technical Support. If you have a question or suggestion for an EndNote FAQ please email us.

The Galter Library has also created an EndNote Basics Guide. Many of your questions may be answered by reading this document.

The university has purchased a site license for EndNote. The current version is EndNote X2. Current Northwestern students, faculty and staff with valid NetIDs can download EndNote from the NUIT website. If you do not know your NetID or are having problems downloading the software, please contact NUIT at consultant@northwestern.edu or (847) 491-HELP. Please follow the instructions below to the letter.

• Download EndNote (you will be prompted to sign in using your NetID and password).
• Note to Windows users: When downloading select "Save File". A zipped folder will be downloaded to your computer. Do not double click on the zipped folder. Instead, right click and extract the contents of the folder to a convenient file folder on your computer. Check out this 1-minute tutorial for further instruction on this.
• After installing the software you should run the update to X2. In EndNote, go to Help >  EndNote Program Updates and follow the on-screen prompts.
• If you are off-campus when installing EndNote, you will need to first connect to NU using VPN (signing in to the Galter Library website is not sufficient).

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There is no product key for the NU version of EndNote; neither can you upgrade to the NU version from a trial version. If prompted for a product key, stop the installation, return to the zipped folder on your desktop and follow the instructions below. If you have installed the trial version, you will need to uninstall it and then follow the instructions below:

When downloading EndNote from the NUIT website select "Save File". A zipped folder will be downloaded to your computer. Do not double click on the zipped folder. Instead, right click and extract the contents of the folder to a convenient file folder on your computer. Check out this 1-minute tutorial for further instruction on this.

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To get the Windows EndNote Cite While You Write (CWYW) commands to appear in Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP/2003/2007, see the FAQs on the EndNote website for instructions on how to fix this.

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Yes, this is possible, but it is quite labor-intensive. Essentially, there are 4 methods of doing this:

• Copy your references from a Word document or PDF and paste them into the HubMed Citation Finder then follow the detailed HubMed instructions.
• Rearrange the reference data using your word processor so that it is in a format that EndNote can import.
• Copy and paste each piece of data from its source into the proper fields in EndNote.
• Enter the data manually by typing it into EndNote.

An additional method would be to search for each citation individually in the most likely database to hold the citation information, such as PubMed. Search using the EndNote interface or search PubMed directly and import the data into EndNote. Again, this is labor-intensive, but it may be the most accurate way of ensuring your data will be entered correctly.

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There may be occasions where you want to copy all the references used in a Microsoft Word document to an EndNote library of its own. Perhaps you have a large EndNote library, but want to create a smaller EndNote library with only the subset of references used in your paper. This is called exporting a traveling library.
To do this:

In Word 2007

• Click on the EndNote tab.
• Click on the Export to EndNote button and choose Export Traveling library.
• Export the traveling library to an existing EndNote library or a new EndNote library and click OK.
• If exporting to a new library name the library and click Save.

In earlier versions of Word

• Go to Word>>Tools>>EndNote >>Export Traveling Library.
• Export the traveling library to an existing EndNote library or a new EndNote library and click OK.
• If exporting to a new library name the library and click Save.

The traveling library does not contain Notes, Abstracts, Images, or Captions.

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This is largely a matter of personal preference and may be dependent on how many people are working with the EndNote libraries and how organized you are. The EndNote producers recommend that users keep all their references together in one main or master EndNote library. This usually avoids hassles inherent in splitting references between libraries and then needing to have multiple libraries open in order to create a bibliography for one paper. Using multiple libraries can also become problematic if a number of people are working on the same project. Instead of making different specialty libraries, you will probably find it more useful to create one library and use the Keyword and Label fields together with EndNote's Search and Sort References commands to help you organize and categorize your references. Remember, the more fields you populate when inputting your references, the easier it will be to find your references when your library becomes larger. So use the Label and Notes fields to categorize your references for easier retrieval later. With EndNote X1 and later versions you have the ability to create groups of references within a single library. Using the groups function will enable you to quickly move selected references to a specific group of references and navigate between groups of references.

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It is possible to either link to the URL of a document or insert files into an EndNote citation. The URL method would require that you are in a position to access the PDF of an article if the article is a licensed resource. In other words, you would need to be on campus to link to the article. The other method - inserting a file - requires that you have saved the article as a file somewhere on your hard drive first. Once inserted, it can be opened anywhere as long as the native application (Word, Acrobat Reader, etc.) is on the same computer.

• With the reference open for editing, right-click in the Link to PDF field and choose Link to PDF.
• Locate the file on your hard drive and Insert it.
• Remember that you need to have the object/file saved somewhere on your hard drive, shared drive, or on a disk before you insert it.

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Yes you can.

• Create and format your bibliography as you would normally.
• From the Tools menu in Word choose EndNote (version no.) >>Remove Field Codes.
• When prompted to save the document, save it under a different name.

The new document retains the bibliography as text. There will be no links between this document and the EndNote library you used to create the bibliography in your original manuscript.

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The NIH has revised their policy for submissions to require the PubMed Central reference number be included in documents submitted to the NIH. Take a look at this EndNote FAQ for more information.

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Yes, you can, although there are different recommendations depending on your situation. The options are explained nicely in this Collaborative Writing Documents help page from the University of Wisconsin.

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If you've inserted references within a table in Word and you receive this error message "A COM exception has occurred. The number must between", go into table properties for the table(s) in which the references are inserted and change the text wrapping to none. The user who reported this issue was running Word 2008 for Mac, EndNote X2, and OS X.5.6. Return to top

This page last updated Oct 22, 2009.