Merging PDF import with online search results (or, copying file attachments between records)

EndNote EndNote How To
1

I had a directory of approximately 5,000 PDF files that I imported into my Endnote library using the automatic PDF folder import feature. About half of these documents either did not contain DOI information or no information was found in the DOI search. Thus, I have a couple thousand entries with blank fields except for the title field, which contains the filename of the PDF.

It is easy enough to do an online search and import the full bibliographic entry into Endnote, but is there a way to copy the PDF file attachment from the empty record to the new, complete record without having to browse though the tens of thousands of PDF files and adding it manually?

Thanks.

2

No this is not possible.

This is a common problem that we would like EndNote to be able to solve [and the way we originally envisioned the PDF import feature might work]. But we were not able to figure out an easy way for EndNote to do this.

For now, we typically recommend that you download records using the Online Search feature and then use the “Find Full Text” function to find and attach PDFs. 

Hopefully we will get a chance to re-visit this workflow in the future.

Jason Rollins, the EndNote team

3

Ideally, a user can select two entries, right-click and find an option ‘merge entries’.

The merge parameters could be defined under settings.

I had the same problem: imported PDFs from a directory and found a many PDFs without doi or PDFs in TIFF format did not import meta information. If the above would be possible, that particular problem would be solved.

4

This would be especially useful of one of those entries was from the online search results window and the other was the incomplete entry (i.e., the empty record containing only the PDF) from the main (local) library.

5

Of course. I think we understand the problem space and agree that the current workflow could be improved. When developing the PDF Import feature we ran into some technical hurdles that made this particular piece [merge with existing records] harder to implement then we would have wanted.

Jason Rollins, the EndNote team