Endnote X1 file attachements error - "This URL(\\) could not be launched"

EndNote EndNote General
14

Hello,

This is an issue that can happen with the different Adobe PDF viewing programs.  When you tell EndNote to open a PDF, EndNote tells Windows to open the PDF.  Something about the way the Adobe programs register with Windows how to open the PDF will cause the error.

Currently the only resolution we have besides using a different PDF viewing program, is to create a Windows Batch file to open PDFs using the PDF software of your choice.  While this may seem redundant, it seems to be the only way to have the PDFs open consistently with the Adobe programs. 

  1. Open My Computer and go to the folder where you PDF viewing software was installed.  The goal here to find the exact path and name of the PDF viewing program.  These are the default installation locations for Acrobat Reader 7 and 8:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe

  1. Go to “Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad”.  You would need a line like the following:

start “” “C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe” %1

You would need to replace the “C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe” with the path to the PDF viewing program you want to use.  Note that this must be in quotes, there is an empty set of quotes between start and the path, and that the line ends with %1

  1. Go to “File > Save As” and set the “Save as type” to “All files”.  Browse to your My Documents folder and save the file the name “PDF_Wrapper.bat”

  2. Open a My Computer Window and go to “Tools > Folder Options”.  Click on “File Types” and select the “PDF” extension.

  3. Click on the “Change” button and then click on “Browse”.  Browse to your My Documents folder, select the file “PDF_Wrapper.bat” click Open and then click OK.  Click Close to close the window.

Browse to a PDF on your computer and double click it to verify that you can still open a PDF.  Then open EndNote and try opening a PDF.  Note that your PDF viewing software may inform you that it is not the default viewer, you would not want to have it be the default viewer.  This may also change the icon that was used for your PDF files.