Mac: problem transferring RIS files - no opening delivery window

EndNote EndNote General
1

Hello,

I have a couple of patrons with Macs that have Endnote X1 and Firefox installed. Both of them can search Ebscohost, select references and tell Ebscohost to export the references. They can also choose to export directly to Endnote, but then no opening delivery window appears. The same window fails to appear if we choose “Generic bibliographic management software” so that we can get a RIS file we can import.

Is there any way to instruct Firefox to open that delivery window or handle RIS files?

I would appreciate any advice.

Message Edited by mgoodin on 11-05-2008 09:34 PM

2

Do they have the Zotero Addon installed?  Zotero by default will take over handling RIS files.  They would need to go into the Zotero preferences and disable it’s handling of RIS files.

3

The patrons haven’t installed Zotero or any other freeware, so that isn’t a cause for conflict.

It’s a real concern for us - our SOE is Windows, but we have a lot of patrons with Mac laptops who are having major problems with Endnote and transfers, or Endnote and Word 2008.

4

Hi Melinda,

We had a student with the same problem and eventually I asked Tech Support and received this answer:

"If they are using Firefox it may not be configured correctly or an add on could be conflicting.  To reset how Firefox will handle Direct Exports:

  1. Close Firefox

  2. Open your Hard Drive and go to “Users/<Your User Account>/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/”

  3. Rename the file “mimeTypes.rdf” to “mimeTypesOLD.rdf”

  4. Start Firefox and perform the export again, you should now have the option to either open or save the file, open the file with EndNote."

Unfortunately, although I emailed these instructions to the student, she never got back to me, so I have no idea if this worked!

Good luck,

Cathy

Unitec Library

New Zealand 

5

Thank you for your detailed reply, Cathy. I will email your suggestion to several of the students and strongly request that they get back to me with feedback. I’ll let you know how I go.

Melinda

6

Update: I have a Mac laptop for troubleshooting which has been successfully transferring records from Firefox to Endnote X1. Unwisely, at one point I clicked on the “do this from now on” radio button. I hoped that following your instructions to rename mimeTypes.rdf would return to the original screen and give me the options. 

Sadly it didn’t. Deleting the file mimeTypes.rdf didn’t return the behaviour to the installation defaults either.

My troubleshooting laptop is still transferring records smoothly, at least.