Journal title abbrevations not displaying in Word

Hi all,

I had a student meet with me because they can’t get journal title abbrevations to appear in their Word document. They have imported the appropriate journal terms lists, and the abbreviated journal titles are displaying properly in the citation preview window in EndNote. However, their Word document displays the full journal titles, even after making sure that they’ve selected the same citation style in Word as in EndNote. The citation style is Cell, if that makes a difference.

Does anybody know what might be going on here? I’ve tried every troubleshooting trick I can think of, including having them create an entirely new EndNote library and Word document, and the same problem occurs every time.

Any ideas are much appreciated!

Need to make sure there isn’t more than one “Cell” output style.  If the student has an output style they have changed to ensure it is using the correct option for Journal abbreviations and saved it to the same name as the original, Endnote ususually takes the one in the program folder folder and not the one in the users’ Documents folder.  Also, if they changed it on one machine but using a different machine to format it, same problem - although it looks like Cell out of the box (2013) has Abbreviation 1 selected.  Which version of Endnote?  They are sure they aren’t using the online rather than the desktop toolbar?  

Hi Leanne,

Thanks so much for your suggestions. The student is for sure using EndNote desktop - I sat down with them in person to help troubleshoot. The student had not made any modifications to the out-of-the-box Cell citation style, and we did actually go in and check that the style had Abbrevation 1 selected for displaying the journal title.

Which version of Endnote X8, X9? Have you tried on your own machine?  

The student is using X9. I have tested this on my own computer using X9 and not run into any problems. The student does use a Mac, while I use a PC, so it’s possible that this is causing the problem? The entire class is required to use EndNote and Cell citation style to write their papers, and I haven’t seen or heard of any other students having this problem yet.

Have you tried taking their document and updating it on your computer? I wonder if it is using the “travelling library” rather than their library to do the formating, and it doesn’t have the terms list?  Grasping at straws, here.  

I haven’t tried updating their document on my computer, so that could be worth experimenting with. I don’t think the document is syncing with a traveling library, though, because the student was making other edits to the citations in their EndNote library (like fixing the capitalization of article titles) and those changes were being reflected in the Word document right away.

Thanks again for all your time and suggestions, Leanne - I’ve really appreciated it! I might try contacting the student to see what happens if they open their library/Word document on one of our lab computers instead of their laptop.