I’m relatively new to EndNote (I’ve been using X4 for a few months now). I frequently use online search to locate articles in PubMed (typically when I’ve downloaded an article already, but forgot to import the reference information). In these cases, I use the PMID to search for the article, and I find it immediately–but the downloaded reference doesn’t include the PMID number! I also find that the PMID field is left blank when I directly export references from online content providers like SpringerLink and ScienceDirect. What am I doing wrong?
Since you are unable to retrieve the PMID field via the direct export method have you tried importing the downloaded references instead by using EndNote’s PubMed filter? But before you get to that step, you’ll need to save the selected PubMed references as text file though some option (e.g., Save to “Generic bibliographic software”).
Viewing the text file will ascertain whether the PMID field is included. If not, you may need to manually enter the information within each EndNote reference. However, if the PMID field is included in the text file, you can try importing the text file (using the PubMed filter). If the PMID field does not appear (which is likely) in the EndNote reference, you can tweak the filter to “add” the field.
Both an online search of PubMed from within Endnote and an import of Pubmed records into Endnote using the Pubmed (NLM) import filter will transfer the PMID into the Endnote Accession Number data field. Endnote also includes a PMCID field (PubMed Central ID) which is not the same as the PMID (PubMed ID).
The PMID is the record identifier for a PubMed database record. Other online databases have their own unique record identifier numbers.
Emily