I encountered a problem with the syncing feature. I’m trying to keep the same library on multiple computers. When I make changes on one computer and then load Endnote on the other computer, the sync feature copies the references fine, but instead of assigning each reference exactly the same ID, it assigns them consecutive numbers. This is a problem if you’ve deleted a reference that is not the very last one in the list, because all references after it will be given the wrong ID number. And if you have two libraries with the same references but different ID numbers, your citations will get screwed up if you create a word document on one computer and open it on the second. I am wondering if anyone at Thomson Reuters is aware of this problem and is working to fix it.
The problem should only occur if the citations are “Converted to Unformatted Citations” before attempting to reformat the document.
Leaving the EndNote citations formatted in the document, there should be no need for the record ID numbers as the code in the background of the document, behind each of the citations carries the record information necessary to create a bibliographic entry for that citation.
Additionally, if the same record is inserted into a document from multiple machines, EndNote will recognize those items as duplicates of one another, and merge them in the document, ensuring that it does not appear as multiple items in the list (as it’s the same record).
Simply do not Unformat the citations before formatting the document, and this will not be an issue.
Though, it should be noted that if the record itself is updated AFTER being inserted into the document as a citation, that citation will need to be unformatted and reformatted if it did not originate from the open EndNote Library.
Highlighting a single citation and using the “Convert to Unformatted Citations” command will only unformat that single citation in the document, allowing it to be updated without requiring the rematching of all citations inserted from other libraries.
EndNote WILL still recognize the citations across sync’d libraries as though they they were from the same library.
The sync process does assign markers to the records that are recognized by the citations.
As such, if a citation is inserted on a different machine, but that record was Sync’d to the library used, there should be no gaps in EndNote’s recognition of that citation. The record can still be adjusted in the sync’d version of the library, and that change will propagate into the document. Even if the record wasn’t from that original library.