ddenison, see below for responses:
Q: OK, thanks. That seems to work. Should it always have been there for that kind of in-text format which is standard in many styles in linguistics)?
A: Yes, based on your citation template example due to the placement of the second Link Adjacent Text marker (diamond):
Author♦(Year|:
Cited Pages)
The second Link Adjacent Text connects/links the colon, Cited Pages field, and second closing parenthesis together. So if the Cited Pages field is blank this segment of the citation won’t be displayed. Adding a Forced Separation marker prevents this from happening. The Forced Separation “breaks” the dependence between the Cited Pages field and the parenthesis so the parenthesis will display despite the absence of info in the Cited Pages field. So the corrected template is:
Author:diamonds:(Year|:Cited Pages|)
Q: How come the Forced Separation marker wasn’t apparently needed in previous versions of EndNote? That right bracket has always appeared without problems, whether or not a page number is included, and even in the new optional format that X6 introduced with author outside the left bracket. It’s only with the release of X7 that this problem has appeared.
A: Hard to say but it may have something to do with the way the templates were/were not using the Link Adjacent Text marker which may have negated the need for a Forced Separation. But it seems odd not to have a second Forced Separation marker in the first place.
You can contact tech support to pursue this further: http://endnote.com/support/contact-support
Q: I want to be sure that adding the forced separation won’t cause other problems down the line, e.g. if the modified style is used with earlier versions of EndNote. And I to know too whether to add it to in-text citation templates in all my linguistics styles.
A: The Forced Separation marker is a long-standing tool so it’s unlikely to cause issues if used correctly. The key issue is to test if the template is producing the correct citation. If not, examine the template’s layout, notably the placement of Link Adjacent Text markers, then add a Forced Separation as needed.
Also note that output styles are updated from time to time to conform with publication and EndNote software changes which can be problematic for users who modify their own output styles and may be unaware of these changes unless they periodically check for updated styles.
Q: Btw, EndNote saved the modified style under its usual name in my own Styles folder, which was what i wanted; no ‘copy’ was added to the filename.
A: What I was referring to was usually modifying an output style then saving the changes for the first time usually prompts EndNote to generate a new file with the word Copy appended (see attached image).
Q: You’ve suggested modifying the template only for Citation - Author (Year). Why does this behave differently from the plain Citation? Or would it be good EndNote practice to include a Forced Separation marker before the right bracket there as well?
A: Without knowing or seeing the ouput style in question my response was based on your example [Citation - Author (Year)]. If there’s a Citation template as well where the Link Adjacent Text connects the second closing parenthesis then a Forced Separation marker should be inserted to break the connection.
Cited Pages|)