How to merge a reference and a PDF-generated reference

EndNote EndNote How To
1

I have a library of over 1200 references of which about a third (400) have reference information and a file attached.  The other two thirds are 400 references (citation data) Ioaded into endnote from Google scholar or other database, and 400 references I downloaded as PDFs to a folder, then uploaded into Endnote, assuming it would be simple enough to merge them later.

I seem to have been wrong and I cannot find how to merge the two.  It seemed like it would be an obvious problem.

For example:

Fleming, L. and O. Sorenson (2001). “Technology as a complex adaptive system: evidence from patent data.” Research policy 30 (7): 1019-1039.  (No PDF Attached)

If I search the title in the PDFs I’ve uploaded I can find it quite quickly as a PDF with no citation info.  How do I reconcile these two entries more easily than saving the PDF back to a known location and uploading it again to the reference?

2

Not possible.  Join the chorus of requesters in the Suggestions forum asking for a combine duplicates option!  Make a new one, or add your voice (like to this one: http://community.thomsonreuters.com/t5/EndNote-Product-Suggestions/Duplicate-handling-merge-references-rather-than-delete/m-p/129723/highlight/true#M11905)  )

3

Thanks!  I’ve added my vote.

4

a (less than ideal) work around:

open (incompletely labelled) pdf

copy title from pdf into title box for citation details

save

select “references” then “find reference updates…” in menu bar

this should find full citation details based on title of paper

select “replace all fields”

save

5

This is a great tip and works. This enables the ability to import a pdf automatically via the file import and if it does not populate the fields, you can use this trick. Before this, I was downloading the citation from Scholar, importing and then finding the file to add to the reference. 

A feature to select multiple references and merge would be ideal.