Endnote users, I could use your help

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Endnote users, I could really use your help, as I am about to uninstall the darn thing!

I use Endnote X4 on a Windows 7 64 bit machine and Office 2010 32 bit installed. The problem I run into is that Endnote makes Word nearly unusable. I would love to be able to just put in citations when I want them. However, Endnote constantly searches the document for potential citations (anything in parentheses, which is a problem when writing results sections). If I use parentheses in a paper, it will try to search the whole document for citations, and then when I hit ignore leave me somewhere other than where I was. If I click anywhere near a parentheses, it will do the same thing. Also, about every 3 minutes, it will randomly do a search and do the same thing. I have tried turning of cite as you write, but it still does it. I simply can't get it to stop and it makes writing papers more difficult than it is worth.

Any ideas on how to get it to finally stop? If not, are there any programs that I could use instead of Endnote that are easy to transfer an Endnote database into? I really am just about done with Endnote if I can't fix this problem, but I have hundreds of citations in it and I would hate to lose all of that work!

Thanks in advance!

Ahhh...I've used Endnote for years, since what I believe was the original EndNote (in undergrad, in the early 2000s). I have also used it throughout my dissertation (which is almost done), and haven't run into any problems. Ever. What are you talking about "32 bit" computer? I remember my old super nintendo from the 90s was 64 bit. How old is your computer?

you should take off the automatic updates

also it sounds like your not using square brackets as indicators? before the references are updated, they should be wrapped with square brackets, so it picks up these { } and not all of these ( ).

i find it to be a really finicky program. i have it on my mac laptop and it's pretty much unusable for some reason, so i just do all my edits on the lab PCs.

Originally Posted by aagman01

Ahhh...I've used Endnote for years, since what I believe was the original EndNote (in undergrad, in the early 2000s). I have also used it throughout my dissertation (which is almost done), and haven't run into any problems. Ever. What are you talking about "32 bit" computer? I remember my old super nintendo from the 90s was 64 bit. How old is your computer?

It's a matter of the CPU, with 64-bit processors really only becoming "mainstream" for most users within the past few years. If you didn't specifically install a 64-bit version of Windows, for example (or didn't buy your computer with software pre-installed within the past couple years), odds are you have a 32-bit version.

I've run Endnote on my x64 computer for a couple years now and haven't ever had the auto-update turned on (heck, didn't even realize that was a feature until this post, haha). I agree deadmau5's recommendations above.

yeah and here is more detail on what I mean:

write the paper normally.

so "lalalalalla (smith & weston, 2007)."

Then when you are ready to insert references, I highlight the entire reference bracket, select the reference within EndNote and then within Word select "insert highlighted citation" or something along those lines... it will paste a text reference in this format: {Smith #1012}. The square brackets tell Endnote where to look. Keep these { } bracket things in your document until you want to update everything.

Thanks deadmau, that sounds like exactly what I need! Thanks everyone for your help!