How to get same record numbers in a Word document and EN library?

I’m about to submit a book manuscript with a bibliography of nearly 600 references, and I need to correct many of the records in the Endnote library and then update in Word. However, many of the record numbers in the citations embedded in my Word document are out of sync with the numbers in my Endnote library. I wanted to solve this by exporting my Word citations to a Traveling Library, but apparently the record numbers of this library will not match the citations in the document.

I desperately need a solution other than using my existing Endnote library and manually correcting all the erroneous record numbers in my citations! Your suggestions will be very much appreciated. 

Michael

(Longtime bibl-manager user, beginning with Papyrus 25+ years ago)

okay.  I am not sure I understand.  You have a document that is numbered but no endnote citations?  or you have them as endnote citations (which is implied if you can export them to a travelling library?) or you used Word’s inbuilt referencing and are converting them to endnote?  What kind of errors do you have?    

Assuming you will have a library with all the records, and want to link it somewhat automated, with the existing document which doesn’t have endnote recognizable citations:    

  1.  can you somehow search and replace to convert the non-endnoted numbers to a #no (for each one, including the groups of numbers, so 1-3 ends up as {#1}{#2}{#3} or  {#1;#2;#3}.  Are they individually cited already?  

  2.  To get 600 records in order so record number match those in the document:

  • you can either drag and drop the citations one by one in the correct order to a new library.  

3 as an alternative, Or you can use an unused field (i use the label field) to type in the number but put a unique character before and after each number, or 001, 002, 003 and then sort on that field sort and then drag and drop them to the new library.  

I have LMW1XX LMW2XX LMW3XX … most fields are matched by endnote as “contains” rather than exact match, so otherwise 45 would match 45 and 245 …  and 450, … etc.  – but if you are sorting the field in the library view, that might not matter if you do the 001-600 manual numbering.  

It is a lot, I know, and it might not really be any easier than biting the bullet and inserting each citation in the document, depending on how many times you cite each citation.  (once each then it is 600 replacements,  but 3 each is 1800 replacements.  

I wish I could sit down with you and see what would be most efficient!  You might PM me and we might be able to come up with something more user friendly once I know what you are starting with?  

SEE SOLUTION BELOW

Thanks Leanne, I really apporeciate your helpful reply and readiness to follow up. Also, sorry I wasn’t clear enough about my problem.

In fact I just got off the phone with Tom at TR tech support, who worked through the problem with me hands-on - and it turns out not to be a problem. 

Based on various web postings by EN users and my own observations, I was under the impression that:

(1)A Traveling Library created from the citations in a Word doc will have different record numbers to those embedded in the EN citation markers in the document. THIS IS TRUE.

(2)Consequently, if references are edited in the Traveling Library and the user then attempts to “Update Citations and Bibl” in Word, EN will be unable to sync because of the disparity in record numbers, and will require the user to manually match each Word citatioon to a record in the EN library. THIS IS NOT TRUE!

It turns out that if the user does an Update in Word immediately after exporting to a Traveling Library, EN is able match the citations in the document to the records in the library even though the record numbers remain discrepant.  Tom added that if a group of people working on the same document share a Traveling Library, they will also have no issues syncing their document to this library, providing they perform an Update with the Traveling Library before doing anything else.

Two caveats that were emphasized:

(1)ONLY the Traveling Library should be open in Endnote.

(2)If Endnote citations are unformatted in the Word document, it will no longer be able to sync with the Traveling Library. (The readon being that under these circumstances, Endnote’s ONLY way of syncing is by record number.)

Hope others find this as helpful as I did.

…Michael

Great to know.  Thanks for the update.