I am running the final release candidate of the 32-bit version of Word 2011 for Mac and Endnote X4 does not recognize it. Is there a timeline for Office 2011 compatibility?
It would be great to get a response to this before Friday (10/1). I will be leading a workshop on bibliographic software with a group of 20+ PhD students. If I do not have some sense that X4 will support Office 2011, I will be suggesting Bookends, costing Reuters approximately $1,500 in lost sales. I would prefer to recommend Endnote for cross-platform compatibility, but will have absolutely no problems changing my presentation to Bookends.
There is another related post about this compatibility (http://community.thomsonreuters.com/t5/EndNote-General/X4-amp-Word-2011-Mac/m-p/12125). In my response to that post, I mentioned that we anticipated an X4 update with this compatibility later this year. The schedule has changed since then so I cannot provide a firm ETA, other than we’re now targeting the first quarter of 2011.
First quarter 2011? Â That is shocking. Â Why so long?
Our lab will be upgrading to Office 2011 ASAP, since Word 2008 crashes extremely often with complex manuscripts.  Although we have been long-time EndNote users, our need for a stable version of Word is greater than our loyalty to EndNote.  I, for one, will be looking for competing products that immediately support Office 2011…how disappointing.
It is really unfortunate the TR waits until Office 2011 releases to start developing the new version of CWYW because it means that the people who depend on it most must wait more than 3 months to actually update to the latest version of MS Word if they want to use EndNote.Â
That is a shame especially considering there were 6 beta version of Office 2011 which were available to developers to ensure that their add-ons work right immediately after Office releases.
I guess TR can do this because there are no real alternatives to using their program and we, the customers, suffer as a result.
First, there are many products that compete with EndNote and we understand and appreciate that our customers could easily choose one of these alternatives.
Second, in our long history working with Microsoft Word, we have found that we need to wait for their release candidate of new versions before we can finish our development work for updates to the EndNote Cite While You Write plug-in. This takes time. CWYW is made up of millions of lines of code that need to be carefully updated and tested to verify that it is going to work with the new APIs and architecture of any new version of Word. Why Microsoft needs to make such drastic changes to their plug-in architecture with each new version of Word is another question that we cannot answer or control.
Third, as soon as we have beta versions of the update available we will let everyone know and would welcome any input and help in testing these.
I will be happy to help test the X4 beta with Word 2011 (feel free to contact me via the e-mail associated with this account), but I am also a bit surprised to learn of such a long lead time.Â
I would also like to be a beta tester. I currently have endnote4 and Mac Office 2011 through my university. Any chance I can help test. I need EndNote to work with Word.
Please add me to the beta program.  I’ve used EndNote since early 90s and need Mac 2011 capability ASAP to complete work on a wide variety of academic documents. Â
John S. March, MD, MPH
Director, Division of Neurosciences Medicine
Duke Clinical Research Institute
john.march@duke.edu www.dcri.duke.edu www.captn.org
JasonR wrote: "…we have found that we need to wait for their release candidate of new versions before we can finish our development work for updates to the EndNote Cite While You Write plug-in.
…as soon as we have beta versions of the update available we will let everyone know and would welcome any input and help in testing these."
Microsoft has had several beta versions. In fact OFM 2011 went “gold” on September 10, 2010. That is they released the Golden Master aka for manufacturing the CD or DVD. See announcement. So, why is TR still waiting for a beta version?
Will EndNote X3 work with OFM 2011? (I bought it at the beginning of the year and cannot afford to pay for another upgrade.)
I don’t think they are waiting for a beta at this point. If you look at when that was posted it was in April. It is likely that they are already working on the update.
I’ve confirmed with Nadyne Richmond who works for the Microsoft Mac Business Unit that Office 2008 & 2011 can co-exist on the same computer. Therefore, I will update to Office on Oct 26 as planned, keeping both versions on my Mac. If I have to use Endnote, I’ll use Word 2008. For everything else, I’ll use Word 2011.
Can we at least get a firm date on when the update will be available?
Office 2011 is releasing at the end of the month. There are features in this software that are very important to me. I need reference software that will work with it. Bookends is available at only $100, but I would prefer not to change from Endnote if I don’t need to. I fear that Bookends may not work exactly the same, and I have a lot invested in Endnote.Â
If you give me a firm release date I can make a decision. I will (unhappily) wait until the end of the year, but if you really don’t know when you are going to finish it I need to pull the plug.
This is not how world class software companies operate.
I agree, Bookends for Mac had Office 2011 support at or around beta 5. I think Thompson Reuters got caught with their pants don. I don’t buy the “lines of code” argument because, if anything, Office 2011 is closer to Office 2007 & 2010, which Reuters has supported for, well, 3 years now. This is inexcusable. So far, it’s cost Reuters $1,000 because ten PhD students I work with have said “I need something at the end of the month because I’m leaving Office 2008 behind.” I can only imagine how many more dollars will be lost if this takes until January.Â