Endnote is formatting abbreviations as references

EndNote EndNote General
1

One of our students uses Endnote X12 und Word (both native on a Mac) to write his thesis. Everything works fine, but he has met a problem concerning normal abbreviations in the text that endnote formats automatically as references.

Here is the history of the problem: The student uses (MLI) in his text as an abbreviation for “multilayer insulation” or some other technical term. By manually formatting the text or by the cite-while-you-write function Endnote recognized this term (MLI) as an references and the formatting dialog opened. Most of the time he used “Ignore” and didn’t format it as an citation. But accidentially one time he formatted is as an citation and since that time every time you write (MLI) Endnote instantly turns the abbreviation into an reference. The student deleted the reference from his library, but it is still in the travelling library within the word document.

We tried to delete the reference from the travelling library with no success. Is it even possibly to delete the reference from the travelling library and how? We also tried to turn off cwyw and formated the document manually. Endnote recognized the abbreviation und the formatting dialog opened. You can choose “Ignore” but Endnote will nevertheless turn the abbreviation into a reference. This was also a dead end.

How can we solve this problem?

Thanks for your answer!

2

first, I suspect that somehow, Endnotes default “temporary citation delimiter” has been changed to use normal parentheses rather than the curly brackets.  This should be changed back in the preferences (in Endnote) and/or the format bibliography dialog box (in word). 

Then deleting and reinserting the abbreviation should fix it.  If it doesn’t, then unformat the document (to now curly brackets) remove/change the abbreviations’ brackets to normal parentheses, and reformat (and turn the CWYW back on).  This should unlink and remove any travelling library notations to the abbreviation. 

3

It seems that unformatting the document und then manually re-formating all citations solved the problem. He emailed that after applying this strategy he can use his normal abbreviations again.