Many authors appear in different variants in my library. Like:
Jones, PR
Jones, Peter Ross
Jones, P.
Jones, Peter
Jones, Peter R.
This can cause initials to appear in the in-text references. I know I can turn that off, but I would like to solve the issue where it happens. Also, when I enter an author manually, I don´t have to skip through the various incarnations of that name that already occur in the library before the one comes up that I need.
Therefore: Is there a way that I can automatically replace ALL occurences in a library of “Jones, Peter” to “Jones, Peter R.” for example? I realize there may be cases of authors having almost the same name but not being the same person, so this is something to be careful about. Can this be done?
Depending upon what version of EndNote you’re using you could use the “Find and Replace” feature (go to the toolbar, select Edit > Find and Replace). But note that you will not be able to review each entry prior to changing so if you’re unsure of doing a global change via Find and Replace you might first search your library for the assorted Peter Jones variations to identify which are the same or different person then change accordingly.
As CG said, not presently, apart from doing a search and replace. I think you should put a “suggestion” in that forum, to link authors to a similar “alternatives” list to that available for journals?
As an alternative, it would be great if Endnote could figure out a smart way to do the comparison, but I suspect if it depended on only initials, then Sam Brown and Susan Brown wouldn’t be flagged… but developers can be clever people, and if you don’t ask, you will never get?