EndNote: Trouble Shooting

Issue: I'm using a Mac and when I try to insert a citation in Word with Cite While You Write, it gives me an error message and grays out the insert options.

Solution: In your Mac's System Preferences, click on Security & Privacy, click Privacy, click on Automation on the left, then make sure that Microsoft Word is selected under Endnote, and that Endnote is selected under Microsoft Word.

Note: Choose the latest edition of EndNote instead of EndNote X9 shown in the image below.

Issue: The EndNote tab is not appearing in my Microsoft Word application. See Mac & PC solutions below

Mac Possible Solution: 

1. Quit Word.
2. Within the EndNote software, click EndNote name at the top right, then click Customizer.
3. Make sure that Cite While You Write is checked (it might already be checked)
4. Click Next and let the Customizer run. 
5. Click Done and Quit EndNote.
6. Restart Word and check if the EndNote tab appears within a minute.

PC Possible Solutions:

1. Within Microsoft Word, click File, click Options, click Customize Ribbon, and check Main Tabs to see if the EndNote tab is active.
2. Mark to select it and click OK to display the EndNote tab in the Word Ribbon.

If that does not fix the issue, follow the steps below to enable EndNote tools in COM Add-Ins:

1. Within Word, click on Options (from File or Office button on top left), click Add-ins.
2. Click COM Add-ins in the manage drop-down menu, click Go. Make sure Endnote Cite While You Write is checked, then click Ok.

• For more versions and details, visit EndNote's support page on this topic here. If you have older versions of EndNote or Word, update Word, then update EndNote in that order and the tab should appear when you reopen Word.

Issue: I want my Online EndNote account to sync with a different EndNote Library (reset sync).

Solution: The University of Western Australia Library gets all the credit for the solution below! Before attempting the procedure below ensure that your EndNote Desktop library is backed up in a Compressed Library.

1. Open EndNote >click on Edit>Preferences>Sync. Disable all automatic syncing and then restart EndNote.
2. In EndNote desktop, open the correct file of the library that you'd like to sync with Online EndNote. Open EndNote>Edit>Preferences>Sync.
3. Add this to the end of your E-Mail Address in the sync preferences: #!resetLocalSync  
   • Note! This is Case Sensitive -- resetLocalSync not “resetlocalsync". 
4. Click OK to close the preferences, close and reopen the EndNote Library, and then click the Sync button.
5. EndNote will then appear to authenticate and return the prompt: “A Sync library can be linked to only one account. Do not proceed unless you intend to break the link to the original account.” This happens because EndNote is checking authentication. Click OK, and EndNote will purge any knowledge of a previous sync.
6. EndNote will then display the message, “Your local sync state has been reset. Please re-enter your E-Mail Address, restart EndNote, and sync again.” Click Ok.
7. Close EndNote and open it again. Close all libraries then open the library which you'd like to sync with EndNote online.
8. Again go to your sync preferences; enter your username/password and setup automatic sync settings. 
9. When you next click Sync, you will once again get the message “A Sync library can be linked to only one account. Do not proceed unless you intend to break the link to the original account.” Click OK. You might be prompted to make a backup. While this step is not required, it never hurts, follow the onscreen prompts to backup.
10. A complete sync will then begin. 
    • Note! The first full sync can take a significant amount of time. Time taken to sync depends upon the size of the PDF attachments and number of references in the library.
11. Once the sync is complete, login to your EndNote online (http://my.endnote.com ) account and check whether you have the same set of references.

Issue: If you have Mendeley installed on your Mac or PC, you might run into an error message that says "A COM exception has occurred. Cannot edit Range" when using EndNote Cite While You Write in Word.  

Solution: The Mendeley plug-in needs to be un-installed to fix the error. According to Clarivate support, you can remove the Mendeley plug-in by following these steps:

1. Quit Word and Outlook.
2. Open Mendeley Desktop.
3. Click the "Tools" menu and select "Uninstall MS Word Plugin."
4. When you receive the message "The Word Plugin has been uninstalled," click OK.

• More info at https://support.clarivate.com/Endnote/s/article/EndNote-Cannot-Edit-Range?language=en_US 

Issue: I have a shared Word document where I and all the authors have been using EndNote to insert citations. How can I get their citations in the document to be saved into my EndNote library?

Solution: The EndNote citations in the document have become a "traveling library" which means that you can use the EndNote tab in Word to export that traveling library of citations into your EndNote library. A great explanation of the steps can be found here: https://mdanderson.libanswers.com/faq/26228

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