Using Word2007 (WinXP) and EndNote X4, I’m experimenting with managing the figures for a manuscript in EndNote. I’ve created a library with the figures and some metadata, but when I insert them, all I get in the text of the caption is the actual “caption” field. I’d like to get the Title field in there, too, is that possible?
Here’s what I get, now:
Figure [number]. [caption]
Here’s what I’d like:
Figure [number]. [Title][caption]
Seems like this might be something that could be done in the jounal stylesheet by adding the appropriate field code…
You might think so, but there aren’t any templates for figures. That facility was an experiment with Endnote that wasn’t very popular and hasn’t been further developed. But since there are users that do use it I guess, they decided not to remove it either. I recommend my students use the word facilities to handle figures, titles and captions and automatic figure numbering for complex documents like their thesis, although it isn’t really possible to link text figure “citations” to figures, and have them automatically change - at least easily. - but it wasn’t really with endnote either, as the updating was less than stellar.
Well, shoot. I decided to pull all the figures from my dissertation into EndNote because I got tired of troubleshooting [Error! Reference source not found] all over the place when managing figure references in the text using Word’s built-in cross-references.
How hard can this be? Has anyone noticed that graphics are hugely important across many fields? Consider that they are no longer solely illustrations or line graphs; there are maps, all manner of GIS-managed demographic information on ESRI or Google Earth maps; also embedded photographs, participant-provided drawings or maps, satellite images and historical images. Digital reproduction, at high resolution, makes them increasingly more important, required, and relevant, regardless of the field.
Many of these have very involved captions, with source and copyright/permissions information required; there are all manner of publicly available images requiring at least Creative Commons attribution. AND, . AND, many of us use a photo manager, .e.g. Aperture or Photoshop, which captures (and allows batch editing and export) of exif and IPTC data. It isn’t hard to get this information exported and managed for import into Endnote as a Reference Type. But why is this information useless unless it is manually entered? This at best creates double/triple work for the researcher, but at worst introduces the likelihood of errors during double-entry of data, and mistakes when submitting manuscripts to publishers.
Why isn’t captioning treated like Referencing? It is a string of related, and specified fields, differing by publisher/publication style.
And don’t tell me it can’t be done. The information is already in the database. Just tell me what it would take to do it. And ask me if I’d pay for it. I know I would; anyone else?
