Some Neophyte Questions mostly but not entirely about syncing

I have spend some time over the last month entering references for a co-authored book project. In the course of that, I developed some nagging questions. I’d appreciate any advice more experienced users can offer.

  1. to the left of the list of references (in EndNote X6 for Mac) is a sync column. Some of my references have a blue dot while others are white. I assume it means some are synced and some are not. I can click on a white dot to make it blue. Is my assumption correct as to what the color of dot indicates, and why do some references appear synced by default, and others don’t?

  2. if I click on the Sync symbol, it duplicates all my references and I have to go through and eliminate the duplicates. Should I just ignore that and let the automatic sync (every 15 minutes and on closing) take care of syncing?

  3. when I install EndNote 6 on another laptop, and I want to sync from my desktop library. Should I delete any references in the laptop library and just let the sync take everything from EndNote Web?

  4. Is there a way to duplicate a reference in a library? I ask because I often have edited volumes in which I want to cite several individual chapters. It would be quickest to copy one of the previously entered book sections, and just change the chapter authors, title and pages, leaving the rest of the reference as entered.

  5. In my file folder I have one .enl file and one .enlx file. I assume that the .enl is my actual data file, and the .enlx file is a compressed library copy I made at some point. Is this correct? If so, I can safely delete the .enlx file. Also, that file has a “Date Modified” date that is well before the last time I added a reference. Does the data file not change its date as references are added?

Sorry for the question dump. I have just been keeping a list… Thanks in advance for any responses.

Chris

Hello Chris,

  1. The marker you see to the left of the list of references, is an indicator of whether the record has been Read or Unread and is not the Sync status.

2 and 3. For information on the proper way to Sync your EndNote library on multiple computers and avoid duplication, please see this article and the associated video:

http://help.thomson.com/default.asp?portalid=TSC&article=122170

If the duplication issues persist, please contact Technical Support for assistance:

http://endnote.com/support/contact-support

  1. You can duplicate the record in your library. The easiest way to do this is to highlight the record in your library and click the Edit menu > Copy and then the Edit menu > Paste. You can then edit the newly created copy of the reference.

  2. An EndNote library is made up of two parts including the .enl file and the .Data folder. If you have a library named “Chris” you would have Chris.enl and Chris.Data. The .enlx file is a compressed copy of the library. You should keep this as a backup of your library. You may wish to place this in a separate folder. If you were to open the .enlx file, it would re-expand the library files (enl and Data folder) and can overwrite any changes you made since the last time you updated the library.

The “Date Modified” information you see for the .enl file through the operating system is not directly correlated to the last date you updated the library. That information is stored within other files associated with the library and not as accessible to the operating system.

I hope that helps.

Jason Berman
Technical Sup Rep RS

Thomson Reuters

Phone: +1 800-336-4474
thomsonreuters.com