I just upgraded to X7 and experimented with the pdf import function which has some excellent automatic features. To my horror I discovered that each imported pdf is copied to a separate numerically labelled folder in the endnote data/pdf folder.
PDFs already fill up a fair part of my hard disc. They are grouped by topic and I want to keep them that way without creating a duplicate in anonymous folders. Is there a way to change the settings in endnote, so that pdfs stay where they are but still can be attached automatically to an endnode library and used in the same way as if imported into the data folder?
Are there other options to bypass duplicating a pdf library when using endnote?
If you mean, asking endnote to import the PDFs in a folder - that is the way it works. If you mean dragging and dropping a file on an existing record, you can change the settings in preferences, so it will leave the PDF where it was and create an absolute link. If you mean “find full text” it only will save it with a relative link to subfolders in the library. I use Endnote to find and retrieve my PDFs rather than sort by topics in folders.
If you want this behaviour to change, you will need to ask for it in Suggestions – but I think there are problems with how your request could be effectively implemented, as each person has their own workflow and while they might be able to get it to work for one, it probably wouldn’t work for the next one exactly how they envisioned, and thus users would be frustrated with what ever else they did on this!
I found a way to stop the import of pdfs into the endnote library folder by tweaking the preferences. I unselected the [] copy new file attachments to the default file attachment folder and create a relative link. Now pdf imports only import a link +/- bibliographic data when DOI are present.
One issue remains the program freezing (Apple Mac OS 10 Maverick) when importing files from some folders, requiring frequent restarts and tedious elimination of problem files by trial/error. Frequent reimports add additional pdf links instead of ignoring them as duplicates and the whole import process is very slow.