EndNote

You can use groups and groups sets to organise your references by categories of your choosing. Groups can be added, deleted and changed without affecting the All References area of your library. References can belong to multiple groups. All references belong to the All References group as well as whichever groups you assign them to. Group Sets act like a subject heading to place your groups under.

Create a Group

From the Menu bar:

1. Click on Groups in the top menu bar
2. Select Create Group from the drop-down menu
3. Type a name for the group in the box that opens in the Groups Pane on the left.

OR

From the Group Pane on the left:

1. Right click on My Groups
2. Select Create Group from the menu
3. Type a name for the group in the box that opens in the Groups Pane on the left

Add a reference to a Group

1. Highlight/select the reference/s in the library window
2. Drag and drop selected references into the group

OR

1. Highlight/select the reference/s in the library window
2. Click on Add References To from the Groups drop‐down menu
3. Select the name of the group from the list available

OR

1. Highlight/select the reference/s in the library window
2. Right‐click on the reference and go to Add References to
3. Select the group from the sub-menu

Create a Group Set

From the Menu bar:

1. Click on Groups in the top menu bar
2. Select Create Group Set from the drop-down menu
3. Type a name for the group set in the box that opens in the Groups Pane on the left

OR

From the Group Pane on the left:

1. Right click on My Groups
2. Select Create Group Set from the menu
3. Type a name for the group set in the box that opens in the Groups Pane on the left

Add an existing Group to a Group Set

1. Highlight a Group.
2. Drag and drop it into the Group Set.

Create a new Group within a Group Set

1. Click on the name of the Group Set in the Groups Pane.
2. Follow the steps for creating a group. The new Group box will appear under the Group Set name.

Create a Smart Group

Smart Groups are groups that have an inbuilt search query. When a new reference is added to your library, it is checked against the search query. If it matches, it is automatically added to the smart group.

1. Right click on My Groups.
2. Select Create Smart Group from the menu.
3. Type a name into the Smart Group Name box.
4. Use the search boxes to create the search query that EndNote uses to automatically populate this group.
5. Click Create.
6. You will see that this new group has appeared in the Groups pane, and EndNote has added all of your references that meet the search criteria. Click on the Smart Group Name to open the group and view the references added to it.

It is now also possible to combine groups through the Create From Groups option

A printable copy of these instructions: Using Groups and Group Sets to manage your library (PDF)

A video you can watch: Creating Groups, groups sets and smart groups (YouTube – UCSF)

It is possible to edit a single field in a batch of selected references in one go. This can save you time when you are tidying up your library, or organising it to make it more searchable. For example you can:

• Label a batch of references with the database you searched and the search terms you used to find them
• Add a keyword, or group of keywords to a batch of references.
• Replace the short 3 or 4 character code, e.g. c8h, with the full database name, e.g. Cinahl, for a batch of exported references.
• Change a batch of references with titles in all capitals to titles in sentence case.

NOTE: This type of editing is not reversible, so use it with care.

Here are 2 examples of how this function can be used.

Add a keyword, or group of keywords to a batch of references

The Keyword field of an EndNote record is searchable. If you add keywords to your references, you can find them by searching your library for those keywords.

1. Open your EndNote library.
2. Select the references you wish to edit.
3. Open the References menu and choose Show Selected References. This hides the references you don’t want to add these keywords to.
4. Open the Tools menu and choose Change/Move/Copy Fields
5. The Change / Move copy fields window opens at the Change Fields tab. Select the Keyword field.
6. For Change, choose Insert after a field’s text. If you insert the new words after any existing ones, you won’t be deleting information you want to keep, such as keywords you added previously, or keywords that came from the database record.
7. Type the keywords you want to add to the field in the box beside the Change options. Separate keywords with semicolons or backslashes, or enter them on separate lines. Click OK.
8. A window will pop up asking for confirmation of the change. Click OK.
9. Yet another window will pop up to confirm that the changes have been made. Click OK.
10. Open one of the records and check the Keyword field to make sure the words have been added.

Label a batch of references with the database, search terms, and the date you searched.

If you are doing a systematic review, this use of the Change/Move/Copy Fields function can be useful in managing your search results, data mining and screening. If you label your references like this, you can generate a Subject Bibliography in EndNote that has the search details and the article abstracts in a single document. (See the Bibliography page of this EndNote guide for details)

For this example, I’m using the Label field to record the database, search string and date searched. This field is never populated with data from database records, so I can safely use Replace Whole field with.

1. Open your EndNote library.
2. Select the references you wish to edit.
3. Open the References menu and choose Show Selected References. This hides the references you don’t want to label with this search string etc.
4. Open the Tools menu and choose Change/Move/Copy Fields
5. The Change / Move copy fields window opens at the Change Fields tab. Select the Label field. For Change, choose Replace whole field.
6. Type the name of the database, your search terms and limiters, and the date you searched into the text box beside the Change options. Click OK
7. A window will pop up asking for confirmation of the change. Click OK.
8. Yet another window will pop up to confirm that the changes have been made. Click OK.
9. Open one of the records and check the Label field to make sure the words have been added.

NOTE: If you are using other fields such as Notes or Database, which are sometimes populated with information from the database record, it is a good idea to use either Insert after a field’s text or Insert before a field’s text. This keeps any text already in those fields and gives you the opportunity to review it.

EndNote can cross check references of the same type and identify pairs with multiple matching fields, using Find Duplicates. There are defaults set for this function, but you can set your own preferences for dealing with duplicates.

Setting duplicate handling preferences

There are several fields available for comparison: Author, Year, Title, Secondary Title (=Journal Title), Volume, Issue, Pages, Section, Publisher, Place Published, Tertiary Title, Short Title, Subsidiary Author, Reference Type, Label. Choose the ones that best suit your own needs.

1. Open the Edit menu and select Preferences
2. Click Duplicates in the menu of the EndNote Preferences window.
3. In the Compare references based on the following fields box, tick the fields you want EndNote to compare. Untick the fields you don’t want to compare. The defaults are Author, Year, Title, and Reference Type.
4. Under Criteria, choose between Exact Match and Ignore spacing and punctuation.
5. Under Online Search Results, choose to automatically discard duplicates, or not. If you allow duplicates to be imported, you can compare the records later using the Find Duplicates option.
6. Click Apply to apply your choices.
7. Click OK to close the window.

Find Duplicates

Use this function to identify duplicate references in your library and deal with them. It will only compare pairs of references.

1. Open EndNote.
2. Select the All References group so that EndNote will search you whole library for duplicates.
3. Open the References menu from the toolbar and select Find Duplicates. EndNote will scan your records.
4. If you have duplicate references, a Find Duplicates window will open. One set of duplicates will be displayed side by side for you to compare. The fields that are different will be highlighted. Choose what you want EndNote to do with these records.
   You have 3 options:
   • Keep this record: This keeps the chosen record and deletes the other one. If there is unique, useful information in the record you are not keeping, copy it and paste it into the record you are keeping first.
   • Skip: This keeps both records and puts them in a temporary Duplicates group so that you can go back and look at them later. This is useful if you have 3 or more duplicate records for the same reference.
   • Cancel: This tells EndNote to delete the most recently added version of the record.
5. When you have decided on one set of duplicates, the next set will appear for you to review. Continue working through the duplicates one set at a time.

When you delete the unwanted duplicate records, they go into the Trash group. To remove them completely, right click on Trash in the Groups pane and select Empty Trash. Please note: The Empty Trash function cannot be undone.

Working in the temporary Duplicates group

If you have 3 or more duplicate records for a single reference, and each has unique information in the additional fields, the temporary duplicates group is useful. It allows you to go through the records and copy the unique information from the duplicates into the one record you want to keep. Then you can manually delete the duplicates without losing anything useful.

1. Open each record for the reference and evaluate the data entered into the fields.
2. Use the record number to identify the most complete and accurate version. This is the one to keep.
3. Open each of the other duplicates in turn. Copy the unique information you wish to keep into a blank document.
4. Close each record as you finish with it.
5. Open the version you are keeping. Paste the unique information into the relevant fields.
6. Save the changes to the record.
7. Double check each record to make sure that you have all of the information you need.
8. Delete the unwanted duplicates.
9. Repeat this for the remaining sets of duplicate records in the Duplicates group.

A printable copy of these instructions: Dealing with duplicates (PDF)

You can annotate the PDF attachments in your EndNote library. The options are:

• Sticky Note – Use this to add comments to the PDF, just like using a paper sticky note.
• Highlight Text – Use this to highlight selected text in yellow
• Underline Text – Use this to underline sections of text
• Strikethough Text – Use this to strikethrough or cross out sections of text

Add a sticky note to the PDF

1. Click the Sticky Note icon.
2. Click the place in the text where you wish to add the note.
3. Double click the Sticky Note icon to open it and type your note/comment.
4. Click the small cross in the top right corner of the Sticky Note to close it.

NOTE: Sticky notes can't be moved around the document. They stay where you first put them.

Highlight, underline or cross out text in the PDF

1. Click the relevant icon.
2. Select the text you want to highlight, underline or cross out.

OR

1. Select the text you want to highlight, underline or cross out.
2. Click the relevant icon.

Remove sticky notes, highlighting, underlining or strikethrough text

1. Right click on a sticky note or section of highlighting, underlining or strikethrough text you want to remove.
2. Select Delete Annotation from the bottom of the pop-up menu.
3. Save the changes to the record.

Caution: If you click Remove, you will delete the PDF attachment.

There is a search panel above the reference panel of your EndNote library. You can use this to locate specific records within your EndNote Library. Search on words that have been added to any of the fields of a record for a reference, as well as within the text of PDF attachments. There are additional things you can search on such as when you added the record to your library.

If you can't see the search Panel, click Show Search Panel on the toolbar beside The Quick Search box. This search panel can be shown or hidden.

Elements of the search panel:

• Options: In this menu, you'll find options to save searches and run saved searches.
• Search Whole Library: You can choose to search your whole library, or part of your library using the options in this drop down menu.
• Match Case: You only need this if you are looking for words with specific capital letters.
• Match Words: This will find an exact match on the word but exclude variants, e.g. EndNote would not find plurals ending in s if you search for the singular.
• Fields to search: The defaults fields are set to Author, Year and Title. You can change these using the drop down menus.
• Comparison operators: The default is set to Contains, but there are several options for how the field is searched, e.g. Field Begins With, and Word Begins With.
• AND, OR, NOT: These work the same was as in Library Search and Library databases.
• Search boxes: Add your search terms here.
• Search button: At the top left beside the Options button. Click this button or Hit enter to run your search.

For more information on using this function, go to Searching for References under Searching and Sorting in EndNote in your EndNote library's Help pages.