I have been having an issue for a while now where every time I try to insert a citation into Word, the program crashes. I tried copying and pasting into a new document and that worked for a little while, but now it’s happening again. I don’t want to keep moving my work to a new document every time I want to add a citation. I have restarted the computer, the programs, tried inserting the citation directly from EndNote… nothing is working. I’ve resorted to citing by hand, but it’s slowing down my work.
The issue could be related to document corruption. Please try the following steps:
In Windows:
Make a backup of your document.
In Word 2010/2013/2016 with Endnote X4 or later, go to the EndNote tab and choose the “Convert Citations and Bibliography > Convert to Unformatted Citations” command.
In Word 2007 with Endnote X1 or later, go to the EndNote tab and choose the “Convert Citations and Bibliography > Convert to Unformatted Citations” command.
In Word 2007 with Endnote X or earlier, go to the Add-Ins tab and choose the “EndNote > Unformat Citations” command.
In Word 2000/2002(XP)/2003 go to the Tools Menu and select “EndNote > Unformat Citations” command.
This will remove the reference list and revert the citations to a temporary format.
Press [Ctrl]+A on the keyboard to highlight everything.
Press [Ctrl]+6 (above the “T” and “Y” key) to remove any additional hidden field codes.
Press [Ctrl]+C to copy the highlighted text.
Open a new document and press [Ctrl]+V to paste.
Note: If you have citations in footnotes, you will need to click in the footnotes section and repeat steps 3- 6.
You should now be able to format this cleaned up version of the document without running into problems.
On a Mac:
Make a backup of your document.
Word 2008/2011: Choose the “Tools > EndNote > Unformat Citations” or “Convert to Unformatted Citations” command, which will remove the reference list and revert the citations.
Word 2016: Go to the EndNote tab and select the “Tools > Convert to Unformatted Citations” command.
This will remove the reference list and revert the citations to a temporary format.
Press [Command]+A on the keyboard to highlight everything. Note: The [Command] key may be identified as the [Apple] key on some keyboards.
Press [Command]+6 (above the “T” and “Y” key) to remove any additional hidden field codes.
Press [Command]+C to copy the highlighted text.
Open a new document and press [Apple]+V to paste.
Note: If you have citations in footnotes, you will need to click in the footnotes section and repeat steps 3- 6.
You should now be able to format this cleaned up version of the document without running into problems.
You can find these steps in our Knowledge Base online:
If the steps above do not resolve the issue then please contact Technical Support:
1-800-336-4474 option 4 then 1
or
Thank you, I had the same issue which is now resolved following your clear instructions.
Thank you, I had the same issue above which is now resolved following your clear instructions.
Thank you! This is helpful!
Thanks. This is helpful!
I have the same problem. I realized that problem disappears when I open all the cited documents by using the same endnote library. I think it is about endnote software. Software should be updated to use the same library for the other independent word documents.
I was using Mendeley I didn’t have such a problem. Because of using the university computer, I can install only two citation software. One of them is “Endnote”. First, I liked it very much. However, encountering that problem was disappointed me. Please, sort this problem.
The problem is because of using the same citation library for the other word documents. You need to keep first cited word document open while editting another word document.
Note for the developer of the endnote software
I am having attached problems while using the word. This problem started after installing the ENDNOTE software. I realized that I am having this problem when I use the same library for another document. When I open the first cited document together problem disappears.
Please solve this issue.
This is no helpful workaround as it happens again and again!
I have the same problem. When I inserted a citation, the existing word document disappeared, then a new word document opened up, but nothing was in it.
BTW, I am using word 365 and endnote 20.
It would be absolutely crucial to mention in your post that removing field codes is permanent and cannot be reversed!!! Endnote does not make MS Word crash anymore but I have no more field codes left… Great
It is essential to NOT SKIP this step – to retain the endnote codes.
If you skip it and still have codes rather than curly bracketed endnote temporary citations, they will be stripped. If you accidentally convert to Plain text, ditto – they will be stripped.