Using Endnote Sync with Ulysses

Hi, I use Endnote X8 with Ulysses and it works really well. The only thing not working is syncing across computers, because the the sync feature does not retain record numbers. (To use Endnote with Ulysses one uses temporary citations in Ulysses’ footnotes and then format the references and bibliography in Word or using the RTF tool after output.)

Has the issue with inconsistent record numbers been fixed in Endnote X9, or does it suffer from the same problem? 

If not: Has anyone found a workaround to ensure record numbers to be identical across computers? 

I hope it can be solved …

I use the accession Number field rather than the record number in the temporary citation preferences.  If you download from Pubmed, that field contains a unique PMID number and means that most libraries are consistent, at least for records downloaded in the past 5 years, or perhaps longer than that. If collaborators do this too, it makes record numbers irrelevant. I just make sure to grab that number for older records in my library.  You can see how many you might be missing by adding that to your library view and sorting on it.  My library does reach back into the dark ages of DOS versions of endnote, so some don’t have them, but I also don’t tend to cite those very often, so it hasn’t been a problem.  

In addition, I routinely copy my primary desktop record number into the label field.  I actually append the number with a code for the library it came from (usually the same library, but on occassion, it may come from a colleagues library with its own not necessarily unique record number) and add an X to the end.  All this can be done, by selecting records that are empty in the field, using the change, move, copy tool, first selecting the records you want to perform the record number copying, show only those records,  then first copy the record number to label, then change the label field adding the prefix code, (no space) and then again, adding something to the end (no space) I use an X, so my labels look like LMW4534X.  This forces the whole item to be unique, and avoid the “contains” error from pulling up partial matches, which I found to be a problem if I wanted to use the label field in the temporary citation choice a few versions ago.  They may have fixed that bug, but it is part of my process.