Enl library compatibility

Dear all,

recently i installled EndNote6 on my PC, but unfortunately now i cannot open my old database which i used for years. It says “This file is not a valid Endnote library, or has been created by an incompatible version of EndNote”. Can this issue be somehow fixed?

Thanks, 

What is the “old database”? Is that Endnote library created by version 1-5? As far as I remember, backward compatibility has been maintained, so if that is the case, you should be able to open it. Another thing, Endnote PC version became available since version 5 (right, Leanne?), and your old database might have been made in Mac. Then, you need appropriate file extension.

In any case, the chance to open your old file is probably…slim.

If your library was created with Endnote 8 or later, it can not be opened with a EN7 or earlier program.  that sounds like your problem.  while you can open an old library and convert it to the new format, you can’t open a newer library with an older program. 

When they removed the record number limitation and switched to use Unicode (EN8), this elimated true backward compatibility. 

History of Endnote.  Endnote was available as a DOS program for the PC, although I believe it was first designed for the Mac platform.  They appear to always have grown up together as sibs, from then on.  Then came Endnote Plus 1.0 and then 2.01  for Win3 (with “Endlink” as an additional “add-on” program), etc.  I have an EN 3 manual on my bookshelf! (although I wrote on the “3”- 1998?).  So with annual updates, that takes us to X3, which came out in 2008? 

Yes, version 8 was the big change. Before that, the size of the library was limited to…32,000? I’m still not yet there.

 Anyway, pre-7 was basically text-handling program. Post 8 became “sort of” relational database.

I didn’t know Endnote for DOS was made. Did it really work? Jut curious.

I also have Endlink 2.0 -Mac manual in my antique shop…sorry, it was irrelevant to the original post. 

@myoshigi wrote:

I didn’t know Endnote for DOS was made. Did it really work? Jut curious.

I also have Endlink 2.0 -Mac manual in my antique shop…sorry, it was irrelevant to the original post. 

yep, it worked, but you had to manually type in the record numbers (and I just put in the [#12] and not the Author, YEAR #12] and then did the format paper thingy.  – for that reason, I got them to put in the option to not “ignore Author year” way back then, and it still persists as an preference option to this day!
Message Edited by Leanne on 11-16-2009 12:37 PM