Easy switch of Journal and Alternative Journal fields

In my database I have the journal name to be the abbreviated version, e.g. Journal of Bacteriology is recorded as J Bacteriol

The full name of the journal is stored in the field “Alternate Journal”.

Sometimes when retrieving references from online sources the two fields are switched so the Journal field contains the full title of the journal and the Alt Journal field contains the abbreviated version.

Then, I will have, for each such reference, to cut the Journal field contents, paste it into the Alternate Journal field in front of what text is there, Select and cut the text that was already in the Alternate field and paste it back into the Journal field.

I suggest a simple feature to switch the contents of the two fields. E.g. by a menu “Switch Journal/Alternate Jorunal” in the right click menu in the referece list.

It would save a lot of time.

Claus Sternberg

You shouldn’t have to - if you use the “journal terms list” functionality, discussed in this thread?  and this KB arcle and video demo link www.endnote.com/kb/82228

I am seeing the same problem.  My EndNote database has been set up with the Journal field containing the full journal name and Alternate Journal field containing the abbreviation. When I import from PUBMED it places the abbreviated journal name into the Journal field and nothing into the Alternate Journal field.

Really annoying.

I’ve read the suggestion about having the Journal Terms List but that hasn’t fixed it.

I am using EndNote X7.4 on a Windows 10 PC.

Can I do a bulk update to swap around the values in the Journal and Alternate Journal fields so I don’t have to do this by hand?

You should not be letting endnote update the journal terms list from imported files.  You should import a complete list (provided by endnote during installation or downloaded from other users) edit your output styles, and it should work.  It is the inconsistancy of the databases we download from.  (The default settings in preferences should NOT be set to auto update journal terms).