I have a lot of broken links that I am trying to repair. In most cases, I think the relevant PDFs are located on my hard drives, but in the wrong place. If I search for the missing PDF using the filename, I typically find the PDF. However, I have been unable to figure out a way to copy-paste the filename from the EndNote record. So, a record with a broken link will display the full path, that is “pathname/filename”, but the filename can’t be copied. Is there a way around this?
It looks as though Windows 11 has a single keystroke to do this - https://www.howtogeek.com/how-to-copy-file-and-folder-paths-on-windows-11/#:~:text=Using%20a%20Keyboard%20Shortcut,-Windows%2011’s%2022H2&text=Select%20the%20file%20or%20folder%2C%20then%20press%20Ctrl%2BShift%2B,%2BShift%2BC%20keyboard%20shortcut.&text=Windows%20has%20copied%20the%20selected%20file%20or%20folder’s%20path%20to%20your%20clipboard.
I’ve left the link to the actual text because this is quite a long page with lots of information. It adds quotation marks around the link (or it did when I tried it just now before posting into Notepad) but there might be a way around it
I think the big question is why has it done this? If a folder name has changed so all the links are broken in the same way, then it would be easier to change the folder name back to what it was to restore all the links at once. I’m not sure if this is part of the “repair” section of EndNote. I have nearly 8000 references so I couldn’t imagine repairing every one by hand!
Thanks for the suggestion. I’m still using Windows 10, but I don’t think that that is crucial. The problem is that the path and filename as displayed in EndNote in the PDF tab of the record is not text, but some kind of image.
As a result, I can’t copy the path or filename. I asked EndNote tech support but they had no suggestions.
I agree with your suggestion about changing the folder name where the unlinked PDF is located back to what it was to restore all the links at once. Unfortunately, the missing PDFs don’t seem to be present in any of the relevant folders. (I’m very puzzled by this.)
Thanks rjl, I think i see the problem. I think i read somewhere that EndNote says not to use synchronised drives like DropBox, because they have a habit of losing files or changing their names. I think EndNote is designed to handle its own synchronisation between computers and online and shared users, although that might be for a previous version of EndNote. I think the problem occurs because both the drive and EndNote synchronise the file, and the mix-up occurs when for example EndNote might rename a folder temporarily whilst overwriting from one place to another, DropBox detects the renaming and renames all other folders, so EndNote can’t find the folder it was supposed to be copying from because that was renamed. So the file is still there but in a different folder.
Have a look at how to set up EndNote for team use
Indeed, having my EndNote files on DropBox is probably one of the sources of my problem (and I have now stopped doing that). My need right now is to find any easy way to copy-paste the file name of the PDF as shown in the broken links error messageso I can easily search for the PDF.
Here’s the official explanation https://support.alfasoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015625898-PDF-management-and-fixes-in-EndNote. You might find that you can change the path to your library (see section “About the Library” to see where it is) via settings, although because it was previously in DropBox try:
- Save a copy of your library to a new place outside of DropBox
- start using the copy instead. By saving a copy, you let EndNote change all the paths.
It looks a lot as though you don’t have any choice other than to find all the broken links, then one by one add the PDFs by attaching them. I think all the “Drag and Drop” options given by Alfasoft are to create new records and they all rely on metadata in the PDF which in my experience is inconsistent and has never yet created a useable record without a lot of manual work.
An option may be to export the broken library to an EndNote XML file. If there is an error that affects all PDF file paths (there is a subnode called “pdf-url” if memory serves me right), you might be able to correct them in batch using textual search and replace functions on the XML file. You could then try creating a new library and import the corrected XML file.
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I don’t quite understand if this is the same issue, but find/replace on file attachments has not worked since ver8 & something I REALLY wish they would fix
Thanks. I’ll try this.