EndNote and Word

Usually if your citation isn’t appearing correctly in Word, it is down to the fact there is an issue with data in EndNote.

Authors name not appearing correctly

Ensure each author is entered on a separate line in EndNote.

When entering names use the following order Last Name, First Name e.g. Smith, John.

If your reference includes the name of an organisation, make sure a comma is added after the name e.g. Manchester Metropolitan University,   

If you don’t enter a comma after the organisation name, EndNote will think it is the name of the person and display it as University, M.M.

Authors initials appearing in citations

If you have references where the authors names are very similar, you may find that initials are added to a citation to help distinguish when using referencing styles such as MMU Harvard.  However, this problem sometimes happens when you enter different formats of the same author’s name. For example:

Smith, J

Smith, J F 

Smith John. 

Although they are the same author, because of the different formats, EndNote sometimes adds initials to your citation to distinguish them.

To fix this issue

• Decide which format of the author’s name you want to use, then run a search within EndNote for that author
• You now need to copy the correct format into each reference in your library where the author appears
• Then save each record  
• Return to your document and update your references

This should have removed the author’s initials from your citations

If you are using a referencing style that uses in text citations, sometimes you may want to include an author’s name as part of your text rather than it appear within the citation brackets. 

You can remove the author’s name, but you need to do this using the EndNote toolbar.  If you simply delete the name and don’t use the method below, EndNote will assume the author’s name should appear and it will be added each time the document is updated.

• Click in the citation you want to edit
• Go to the EndNote toolbar and select Edit citation.  Make sure the correct citation is highlighted
• Under Edit citation you need to click next to Exclude Author.  If you are using Desktop EndNote next to Formatting select the drop down arrow and choose Exclude Author.  Then click OK. 
• In the text you should just see the year is left within the brackets and you can now type the author’s name in the text. 

If you need to reverse this change, repeat the process and unselect the option for this citation.

There is an easy way to add page numbers to a citation in your Word document:

• Right-click on the citation to highlight it.

• Next access the EndNote toolbar.  If you are using Desktop EndNote choose Edit & Manage Citations.  If you are using EndNote Online choose Edit Citation(s).

• In the next box you will need to make sure the correct citation is highlighted. 

• Now you need to enter the page number.  Some referencing styles use the pages fields and others may use fields such as Suffix.

  • If you are using the Cite Them Right Harvard style, type the page number into box marked Pages and click OK. You just need to enter the page number, do not add p. this will be automatically added by the software. If you need to add a paragraph number for an online source, then use the Suffix field. Use the following format add a comma followed by a space then para. and then add the paragraph number eg , para. 4 

  • If using the MMU Harvard referencing style you should add page references as a Suffix, using a colon followed by the page number, eg :9 then click OK. 

  • For other styles you will need to check which field to use to add the page numbers in the correct place. 

Some referencing styles such as MHRA and OSCOLA request that citations are placed within footnotes at the bottom of the page. 

EndNote cannot create a footnote, this needs to be added using the formatting tools in Word.

1. First make sure you have chosen the correct referencing style for your document by going to the EndNote Toolbar and, next to style, choose the style you require by clicking Select another style from the drop down menu.
2. Within your Word document, position the cursor where you want to add the footnote.
3. Go to the References tab on the Word toolbar and choose Insert Footnote.
4. Go back to the EndNote tab on the Word toolbar and click on Insert Citations.  Locate the citation you want to add and click Insert.  A citation will then be added into the footnote
5. You may need to alter footnotes to include page numbers. This can easily be done by clicking on the reference within the footnote to highlight it, then choosing Edit citation on the EndNote toolbar and adding the page details in the suffix box.

If you’ve used Cite While You Write toolbar to create a citation within your Word document, you must also use Cite While You Write toolbar to edit or delete citations that you’ve added.

Use the Edit Citation(s) option on the EndNote toolbar within Word. Highlight the citation you wish to remove, then click on the Edit Citation drop-down menu and choose Remove Citation.

This is crucial. If instead you use the Delete button on your keyboard, the EndNote reference in your document may be corrupted.

There are many thousands of referencing styles available in EndNote. 

To select a referencing style in Word:

• Click on the EndNote tab.
• Next to style, click on the drop down arrow and choose Select Another Style.
• A new box will appear. Scroll down to the relevant referencing style and select. Then click OK.  This will apply the referencing style to the document.

If you are submitting your work to Turnitin or to a publisher, it is always better to submit a plain text copy which doesn’t contain any live links to your EndNote library.

To remove field codes and save the formatted citations and bibliography as text:

1. From within your Word document select Convert Citations and Bibliography from the EndNote toolbar, and then select Convert to Plain Text.

2. A new document will be created, which is unlinked from EndNote.  You can then save this document to use as a submission copy.

Note: You will still need to keep a copy of a live document containing all your references as these will be linked to your EndNote library, in case you need to make any further edits.

If you have multiple documents and want to merge them into one new document and create a single reference list then you would need to use the following method.

In each of your original documents you need to Unformat your citations

• Select Convert Citations and Bibliography
• Choose Convert to Unformatted Citations

In your existing documents, the bibliography will be removed and your citations will appear in a different form. The next step is:

• Create a new document
• Copy and paste all your text into the new document
• Now choose a referencing style
  •  Click the drop down arrow next to Style
  • Or choose Select Another Style to access the full list
• Now choose Update Citations and Bibliography.  This will reapply the style across the document, your citations will be reformatted and a single reference list will be created at the end of your document.

It is possible to amend an EndNote output style to apply different rules to how many authors are displayed in a reference list. 

Currently the Cite Them Right Harvard Style is set to display all author names within an entry on the reference list. This is irrespective of the number of authors a source has.  If you want EndNote to display et al. for sources with four or more authors, you need to make the following amendment to the style. 

Please note this can only be done within Desktop EndNote.

• Open EndNote Desktop and your library of references.
• Next select Tools, then Output styles, then Open the Style Manager.
• Locate Cite Them Right-Harvard and click to select, then click Edit.          
• In the next window find the heading Bibliography and then select Author Lists.
• Under Abbreviated Author List, you will see that list all author name is selected. Click to select the next option, which begins, If 100 or more authors …
• You will then need to change the number 100 to 4 -so that the sentence reads, If 4 or more authors, list the first 1 and abbreviate with et al.
• Next click on the cross in the top right to close this window.  A message will appear Save changes to the EndNote style file Cite Them Right Harvard - before closing.  Click Yes.  You may be promoted to save this as a copy of the style. 
• The screen will close, and the style will be updated.
• To apply any changes to the document return to Word.
  • Go to the style menu and choose any other referencing style.  Then return to the style menu and reapply Cite Them Right Harvard style.
  • If you have saved a copy of Cite Them Right Harvard style, click on the drop down arrow next to Style, then choose Select Another Style.  A full list of styles will appear, scroll down and choose Cite Them Right Harvard Copy.   

Please note if you are using EndNote on multiple devices, you will need to update the style on each computer, so EndNote applies the style consistently within your documents.  If you have an existing document containing EndNote references, then you will need to update the document to apply this change.