EndNote® Plus Guide for Reference Manager® Conversion
Instructions for converting Reference Manager data and papers for use with EndNote Plus.
Table Of Contents:
I. Introduction
II. Convert Your Reference Manager Data Into an EndNote Library
III. Convert Citations in your Word Processing Documents to be Compatible with EndNote
IV. Format Your Papers with EndNote Plus
V. Troubleshooting
VI. 10 Features You Will Find in EndNote That Aren't Available in Reference Manager
VII. Contact Information
I. Introduction
EndNote Plus 2.2 contains two special conversion options that make it even easier to switch from Reference Manager to EndNote Plus.
• Easy Conversion of Reference Manager Databases
In one step, EndNote Plus can convert Reference Manager data into an EndNote library. The original Reference Manager files remain untouched during this process, and the resulting library is fully compatible with EndNote Plus.
• Easy Conversion of Word Processing Documents
After converting a Reference Manager database, you can convert Reference Manager citations in word processing documents into EndNote citations. This enables you to format the papers with EndNote—without having to reinsert any of the citations!
NOTE: In this documentation, EndNote Plus 2.2 is sometimes referred to as just "EndNote". The term "library" is used to indicate an EndNote database of references.
II. Convert Your Reference Manager Data Into an EndNote Library
Follow the instructions below to convert your Reference Manager data into an EndNote library.
To begin the conversion:
1. Start EndNote Plus by double-clicking the EndNote Plus program icon. (If a default library opens, close it, and then choose Open from the File menu.)
NOTE: When converting DOS or Windows files, press the Shift key while choosing Open from EndNote's File menu.
2. A dialog appears, prompting you to open a Reference Library file. Use the popup menu at the top of the dialog to switch to the main level of the hard drive and open the folder in which your Reference Manager database is stored. Select any one of your 5 Reference Manager data files and click Open.
A dialog appears in which you can choose Customize…, Convert…, or Cancel. The "Customize" option allows you to modify the mapping of data from Reference Manager fields to EndNote fields. In most cases it will not be necessary to change the field mapping unless you have customized your database or wish to customize the way references are transferred to EndNote.
Mapping Reference Manager Fields to EndNote Fields
EndNote and Reference Manager reference types and field names are not exactly the same, which is why customized mapping can be useful. When you choose the Customize... button, you see a chart mapping Reference Manager's reference types to EndNote's reference types, and Reference Manager's field names to EndNote's field names. The field names shown in the lower half of the dialog are for the Reference Type selected in the top portion of the dialog.
To change an assigned EndNote reference type or field name, click on the EndNote name (in the right column), and use the appropriate EndNote Refs Type or EndNote Fields popup menu to select a different reference type or field name. If you make mistakes, you can revert to the default settings by clicking Reset to Default Map. Click Save to save your changes and return to the previous dialog. Click Cancel to dismiss the dialog without saving any changes.
NOTE: Some of the older (DOS and Mac) Reference Manager versions didn't have a field reserved specifically for the Abstract. Instead, there was just a general "Notes" field that you could use for entering notes or to store the
abstract. This "Notes" field gets transferred into EndNote's "Notes" field by default. Later versions of Reference Manager included both an Abstract field and a Notes field, and EndNote's default mapping scheme pairs their
Abstract field with ours, and the same for the Notes. If you are transferring references from a version of Reference Manager that did not have an Abstract field, you can re-map the Reference Manager Notes field to EndNote's Abstract field if necessary.
You may change the name or location where the new library will be saved and then click Save. When the conversion is complete, an EndNote library appears displaying your references. The text at the top of the Library window ("Showing # references out of #") tells you how many records were converted.
(Note that an EndNote library consists of only 1 file, not 5 like Reference Manager.)
NOTE: You can cancel the conversion process at any time, but only the references converted up to that point will appear in the new EndNote library. An incomplete library may prevent the successful conversion of papers with Reference Manager citations.
Verifying the Conversion
To verify that the references were converted as expected, double-click any part of a reference to open and view its contents. You can add more fields or rename the fields if necessary using the Reference Types table (choose Reference Types from the Edit menu). If you are not satisfied with the conversion, then re-do the conversion making sure to customize the field mapping as necessary.
Term Lists
In addition to converting your references, EndNote also converts your Reference Manager journal names and abbreviations into a Journal term list.
To see the journal names that were converted, choose Open List… from the Terms menu, select Journals and click Open. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard or click in the scroll bar to see the contents of the list.
Author and Keyword lists are not automatically transferred with the conversion. In order to create an Author List or Keyword List from the references in your library, choose Open List… from the Terms menu and open the appropriate list. Then choose Update List… from the Terms menu and click Update. The terms will be added to the list.
Converting More Than One Reference Manager Database
We recommend you convert one library and its associated papers first, then convert the next library and its associated papers. This is to avoid problems converting ambiguous citations in the case that two citations from two different Reference Manager databases have the same ID number.
III. Convert Your Word Processing Documents To Be Compatible With EndNote
To convert Reference Manager citations in word processing documents to EndNote citations:
1. Open your newly created EndNote library if it is not already open. To open a library, choose Open from EndNote's File menu, or double-click the icon for the library on your hard drive.
2. Choose Convert RefMan Paper... from EndNote's Paper menu.
3. An alert with information about the conversion appears. Click Continue to proceed.
4. A dialog appears, allowing you to specify exactly which characters are used to designate Reference Manager citations in your papers. You only need to change these settings if you changed the default settings in Reference Manager. Change the markers if necessary, then click Continue.
5. You are presented with a dialog asking you to locate and open the word processing document to be converted. Select and open the document with Reference Manager citations.
6. If the conversion was successful, EndNote suggests a name for the new file it will create with the converted citations. The suggested name stems from the original file name plus “- EN”. You may change the file name or the location where it will be saved, however, do not save the document with the same name as your original document or you will overwrite it. Click Save.
(If you received any alerts about citations that were not found or not converted, consult the Troubleshooting section at the end of this file. You may still proceed with Part IV even if some citations are missing, but your in-text citations and bibliography may be incomplete.)
This converted copy of your paper can now be formatted with EndNote!
IV. Format Your Papers With EndNote Plus
You can now generate a bibliography for your converted papers with your new EndNote library. Consult the "Instructions" file included with the Demo for an EndNote tutorial - including more detailed information about formatting papers. Note that the EndNote Plus Demo will only format papers with 10 or fewer citations.
Instructions for Microsoft Word 6 Users:
1. With the EndNote Plus program still running, start Microsoft Word and open your newly-converted paper.
2. Choose Format Bibliography from Word’s Tools menu.
3. EndNote prompts you to choose a journal style. Choose a style and click Format.
Instructions for Users of Other Word Processors:
With your library open in EndNote Plus:
1. Choose Scan Paper… from EndNote’s Paper menu.
2. Locate your newly converted paper, select it, and click Open.
3. Choose a style from the Styles menu.
4. Choose Format… from the Paper menu. EndNote suggests a new name for the formatted document. Click Save to continue with the formatting.
When EndNote is done, there will be a new paper on your hard drive—complete with formatted citations and a bibliography! You may open that document in your word processor to view and print it.
V. Troubleshooting
How EndNote finds and converts the citations: When EndNote converts your Reference Manager data to an EndNote library, it stores the old Reference Manager IDs for each reference in the new record’s Label field in EndNote. When converting your papers, EndNote scans your document looking for Reference Manager citations (IDs) and compiles a list of IDs that need to be converted. Next it scans the EndNote library that is currently open, looking for those ID numbers in EndNote’s Label field. When it finds a match, it replaces the Reference Manager citation in the paper with an EndNote citation, and creates a new document.
Possible error messages during the word processor file conversion:
• “No citations found.”
EndNote displays this dialog if no citations were found. Most likely this means one of three things: 1. The open and close markers specified in the earlier dialog are not the actual markers used in this paper. (For example, EndNote was looking for curly brackets “{“ and “}”, but your citations are actually in square brackets “[” “]”). 2. The EndNote library that is currently open is not the library that contains the citations that are in this paper. 3. This paper has no citations.
• “No citations were converted. Refer to the conversion summary for citations not found in the library.”
This indicates that something was found in the paper that looked like a citation, but it did not match a reference in EndNote’s library. This can happen if the wrong EndNote library was open during conversion. This could also mean that you did not specify the correct opening and closing markers for the citations. For example, if you specified “[” and “]” as your citation markers, but your actual citations had curly brackets “{” and “}”, it is possible that EndNote found something else in your paper enclosed in square brackets, and assuming this was a citation, EndNote tried to match this to a reference. Make sure the correct EndNote library is open, and open your document to verify the citation makers. Then, try the conversion again.
• “No citations were converted. All found citations were part of an incomplete multiple citation.”
Of the citations “not found”, if any of them are part of a larger “multiple citation”, that is, one of several citations within one set of markers, then the entire multiple citation will be left unconverted in the new paper. For example, if 4 is not found, and is part of the multiple citation {4, 5, 6}, then the entire citation {4, 5, 6} remains unconverted until citation 4 is resolved.
If all unfound citations are part of group citations, then you will see this message. This means that EndNote could not convert the citations because there is at least 1 citation in a multiple citation that cannot be found in the library, thus preventing the formatting of the entire citation.
Document Conversion Summary dialog:
EndNote will alert you when it cannot find matches for possible citations in the text. This dialog displays citations that were found in the text of the paper but could not be matched to references in the EndNote library. You will see this dialog if citations are found in the paper, but some or none matched references in the EndNote library, EndNote presents a Document Conversion Summary stating how many citations in your paper matched references in the EndNote library, and provides a list of citations that could not be found in the EndNote library.
These “citations” could be any text in the document enclosed in the citation makers (these entries can just be ignored). Or if you canceled the database conversion before it was complete, and then try to convert papers, some citations in your papers will not be in the EndNote database. If a citation in your paper is not found to match a reference in your EndNote library, it is left unconverted. If the citations “not found” include non-citations, such as notes or other text enclosed in the same markers as your citations, then these will appear in the conversion as citation not found. If you know they are not citations, then ignore them. You can still continue with the conversion.
Click Copy to copy the list of unmatched citations to the Clipboard. You can then paste the list into a word processing document to print it if that will help you to locate and correct the citations in the paper.
Once you have finished looking at the Conversion Summary, click Continue.
VI. 10 Features You Will Find in EndNote That Aren't Available in Reference Manager*
1. EndNote allows you to index all fields. This means that searching any field in EndNote can give you immediate results. To create a QuickFind index, choose QuickFind Index... from the Edit menu. Choose All Fields to index the whole database, or just Keywords to index those words in the Keywords field of each reference. Naturally an All Fields index will take much longer to create and more disk space than just the Keywords index. This may take a while, depending on the size of your database (if it is a very large library, you may want to start the index at the end of your work day, and let EndNote generate the index overnight).
2. It takes fewer steps to enter a new reference into your EndNote database than in Reference Manager. In EndNote just choose New Reference from the References menu, enter the data into the separate fields, tabbing or clicking to move from field to field, and close the reference when you're done. It is saved automatically.
3. In EndNote you can search using 'less than' and 'greater than' symbols such as <, >,≤, ≥. With these symbols you can easily search for all references published before or after a certain date. You can also search for works published between two years using the range symbol. You can also search for empty fields, which you cannot in Reference Manager.
4. While looking at an EndNote library, you can simply type a letter or two to jump to that author's name in the window. Try this by typing the letter "t" and see how the screen display moves to the authors names that begin with T.
5. In EndNote you can easily copy and paste entire references from one database to another without exporting and importing data. Open your library. Then create a new library by choosing New from the File menu. Select some references from your library (hold the Shift key down to select multiple references) and choose Copy from the Edit menu. Switch to the new library, and choose Paste from the Edit menu.
6. Share a single database from both Macs and PCs over a network. All versions of EndNote created in the last 8 years can open all EndNote databases on all platforms, including DOS! This makes collaborating with your colleagues who use EndNote very easy!
7. In EndNote, you can open several databases at once and if you use Microsoft Word, you can format your paper with several databases at once using the EndNote Add-in for Word 6 (or the EndNote Plus Plug-In Module for Word 5, v. 1.3 or later).
8. Your Reference Manager database is composed of 5 separate parts. To move to a new computer, you have to copy all files. An EndNote database is just 1 file. This makes sharing your library or moving to different computers much simpler.
9. In EndNote, you can apply global editing to all fields in the database. In Reference Manager, you can apply global editing only to the keywords, periodical or author fields.
10. EndNote Plus provides 16 pre-defined reference types (and one free 'Unused' type), all of which can be customized to meet your needs. Each reference type can support up to 27 different fields.
* This is based on a comparison between EndNote Plus for Macintosh 2.2 and Reference Manager for Macintosh 2.0.3.
VII. Contact Information
If you have technical questions contact:
Niles & Associates, Inc.
800 Jones St.
Berkeley, CA 94710, USA
Monday-Friday: 8am-5pm (Pacific Time)
Phone: 510-559-8592
Fax: 510-559-8683
Internet addresses:
Ordering and General Information: info@niles.com
Macintosh Technical Support: mac-support@niles.com
Trademark Information: EndNote is a registered trademark and EndNote Plus is a trademark of Niles & Associates, Inc. Reference Manager® is a registered trademark of the Institute for Scientific Information. All other products and service names cited in this guide are trademarks or service marks of their respective companies.
