I am in the process of formatting my dissertation and have discovered that Endnote recognizes none of my unformatted citations when I go ask Word to covert them to formatted citations. Trying to figure out why this is the case, I set the Endnote library to show reference numbers. They no longer match the reference numbers in the unformatted citations in my text! Some of these unformatted citations I just added to my text yesterday. How could the record numbers change?!?!
Btw, I’m using Word 2011 and Endnote X7 with OS Mavericks. All software is up-to-date. I sync on Endnote’s own servers. I have created all of the unformatted citations with the copy-paste function (not manually keying them in). I tried copying them into another document, no change. I CAN go through and manually make each connect, but I have nearly 400 pages worth of heavy citations. It will take me a week which I do not have.
I do have this library synced and use it across multiple computers. Would the reference numbers be different on different computers despite the sync? I have also had to add citations to the library along the way. Does adding citations to a library change record numbers?
I have kept them unformatted because of past difficulties managing formatted citations in large documents. (Also, I am frequently combining and uncombining documents, so it seemed less likely to result in corruption.)
So I’ve spent several hours reading everything on record numbers on every forum ever written about Endnote, and I’m astonished to learn that it is a known issue that record numbers do not sync across so-called “synced” libraries. I find this unbelievable. Why is it called sync if it doesn’t enable the user to use the same library on two computers? Essentially you can either a) sync or b) use unformatted citations, but never both. How is this not all over the standard startup documentation?
Of course in Endnote Help documentation there is a warning against creating unformatted citations on two different computers. At the time, I just assumed that it meant *unsynced* libraries on two different computers.
I did find that most of my unreadable citations are readable on the other computer I use. But this raises a real problem for my workflow: I have to work on both computers. Can I manage this by switching to formatted citations – will that fix my problem of differently numbered records across synced libraries? (Even though I really don’t trust it not to create more problems.) What if I do have a problem and I have to go back to unformatted and then reformat the document – will it put me right back here? Do I have to go back to the old USB-portable library between computers?
Finally, I see in the application help documentation that it is possible to format a paper from multiple libraries. Could I do that if they are the same library with different record numbers?
What a mess. I will be grateful for any help on what to do next.