EndNote

1. Make sure you have only one EndNote Library (ENL)

2. Save your ENL to local storage (and not cloud storage/OneDrive)

3. Get references in to your Library

4. Check your references (for mistakes an/or missing details)

5. Organise your EndNote Library

6. Deduplicate

When you create an EndNote Library (ENL), the default is to call it 'My EndNote Library'.  You can keep this name or rename it.  The important thing is to only have one EndNote Library.  When your insert your references into your Word document, the EndNote toolbar in Word 'talks' to your EndNote Library.  You need to make sure that it is only talking to one ENL.  If you need to organise your references, do this within your ENL using groups (see How to organise your EndNote Library).

You should always save your active EndNote Library to your local directory and NOT to cloud storage e.g. your OneDrive.  See:

There have been instances of EndNote Library corruption/loss of data when EndNote libraries are saved to OneDrive/cloud storage.

If you need to use your EndNote Library on more than one device or share your references/library with colleagues/friends, then you can do this by syncing with EndNote 21 (online): See:

We recommend EndNote 21 (desktop) is your 'main' library and the online version is used for syncing, for sharing references/libraries, to use on a tablet or as a backup library.

The main ways to get references into your EndNote library are:

1. EndNote / RIS export
   • Exporting the bibliographic (and other) details from databases (e.g. Discovery, Scopus, Web of Science etc).
2. PDFs
   • Importing a PDF file/folders of PDFs already saved on your computer
     • can also set up automatic importing of any PDFs you subsequently add to your computer
   • Using the 'export PDF' option in EndNote Click
3. Creating the reference manually
   • Typing or copy/pasting the bibliographic details in when the above two methods are not  applicable e.g. a website
   • There is also a bookmarklet you can use for websites, but it often has missing details

If you have used the RIS export or have typed the details in and want to attach the PDF to the reference, you can:

• Use the 'find full-text feature'
• Dag and drop or attach a PDF to an existing records

For instructions on how to get references in to your library, see:

(4.0 Getting references, PDFs and files into your EndNote Library)

If you wish to download EndNote Click see:

Should I use the online search within EndNote 21?

This option allows you to search some of the Library's databases and freely available catalogues from within EndNote. Although it may seem convenient, the search features in this type of search are limited compared to those available when searching the databases directly.  It also does not search all of our databases.  For these reasons, we do not recommend using this feature. Instead it is better to export from the library databases. See your Subject guide for suggested databases:

Regardless of how you get your references into your EndNote Library, it is important that you check your references in your library.  Look out for:

• spelling mistakes, bibliographic details in the wrong field, transposed names, unwanted abbreviations, missing details etc

Any mistakes in EndNote will mean a mistake in your Word document.  If you do notice a mistake, make the edit the record in your EndNote Library.

Remember, you should only have one ENL.  In order to manage your references, you can organise them into 'groups' and 'group sets'.  You can do this manually, or set up criteria for EndNote to do it automatically.  See:

(5.0 Managing your EndNote Library)

*New* for EndNote 21, you can also use the 'tagging' feature:

• Tags are customisable labels that let you organize your references however you'd like.
• You can add tags to references and customise the colour and name of the tags. 
• You can add multiple tags to a reference and anyone who you share your library with can view a tag, making tags a great way to quickly and intuitively organise your references.

Remember the EndNote toolbar in Word is 'talking' to your ENL.  If you are inserting the same reference/citation more than once, you need to make sure that you are telling Word to insert the same reference from your ENL, not a different record with the same bibliographic details.  If you do insert different records Word will think these are different references and start adding alphabetic characters to differentiate them e.g. (Kelly, 2024a) (Kelly, 2024b) etc.

To make sure it doesn't do this, you need to deduplicate your ENL regularly.  See:

(5.4 Deleting duplicate records)

For installation help, contact the IT HelpDesk:

For help setting up and using EndNote, see our Training Materials section, or you may prefer to sign up to one of our EndNote classes, which we deliver regularly throughout the year as part of the Skills Hub programme:

If you have a specific question, or if wish to arrange a class for a group of staff/students, please contact your Academic Librarian: