Creating a Tab-Delimited Format
The Tab-delimited import option can import text files in which each reference is separated by a paragraph break (¶), and the fields within a reference are separated by tabs. Most databases or spreadsheets can export a tab-delimited text file.
Preparing the Data Before Exporting
Author Names
Before you export data from a database or spreadsheet into a text file, we recommend that you separate multiple author names with a semicolon (;) or two forward slashes (//). For example:
McCartney, P.//Harrison, G.//Lennon, J.
If you cannot easily do this in your database, you can do it after exporting or manually edit the data after it is in EndNote.
Reference Types
If possible, you should make sure that each reference in your tab-delimited file includes a field indicating the reference type. Use EndNote’s Reference Type names so that EndNote is able to recognize the formats. If you have only one type of reference (such as Journal Articles), it is not necessary to do this—the import settings can indicate that all references should be imported as the same type.
If you cannot label each reference with the appropriate Reference Type name, you should export your data into separate files based on reference type. This makes it easy to preserve the original reference types of the references when importing the data files into EndNote.
Paragraph/Line Breaks within Records
Each reference must end with a paragraph mark. There should be no paragraph marks or line breaks within a reference. For example, spreadsheet programs such as Excel will allow you to enter line breaks within a cell. When saved as a tab-delimited file, these line breaks may be interpreted as the end of a record, breaking the reference into separate EndNote references.
Preparing the Data File for Import
Once the tab-delimited file(s) are generated, you must open each file in a text editor or word processor and add two lines to it. These lines tell EndNote what the reference type is for the data and how the data should be interpreted.
First Line: The Default Reference Type
If all the references in the file are for the same reference type, the first line of the file must define the default reference type for the entire file. The format for the first line is an asterisk (*) immediately followed by a valid EndNote reference type, followed by a paragraph break (shown below as <¶>). For example:
*Journal Article<¶>
The second line should contain the field names used for that reference type. A file of journal articles would contain the fields used in the Journal Article reference type. It might look like this:
| *Journal Article<¶> | |||||||||
| Author | <tab> | Year | <tab> | Title | <tab> | Journal | <tab> | Volume | <¶> |
| Jones, J//Shoe, S | <tab> | 1994 | <tab> | Easy Food | <tab> | J. of Eating | <tab> | 1 | <¶> |
| Woo, W//Lee, L | <tab> | 1995 | <tab> | Rain Hats | <tab> | J. of Clothing | <tab> | 2 | <¶> |
| Carlos, C//Luis, L | <tab> | 1991 | <tab> | Cell Phone | <tab> | J. of Phones | <tab> | 3 | <¶> |
| Tab-Delimited File Example for a Single Standard EndNote Reference Type as the Default | |||||||||
First Line: A Custom Reference Type
Just like when importing a tab-delimited file for a standard reference type, the field names for a custom reference type must match the reference type, so you will need to know the field names you used in your custom reference type. To find them, follow these instructions.
- Select Preferences from the Edit menu.
- Select Reference Types.
- Click the Modify Reference Types button. Find your custom reference type and make a note all the fields used in it.
Note: You can find templates of all the reference types using the List of Reference Types. These templates can be printed out to help you record changes you make to the reference types.
A file for which you are using a custom reference type as the default might look like this:
| *My Reference Type<¶> | |||||||||
| [F1] | <tab> | [F2] | <tab> | [F3] | <tab> | [F4] | <tab> | [F5] | <¶> |
| Jones, J//Shoe, S | <tab> | 1994 | <tab> | Easy Food | <tab> | J. of Eating | <tab> | 1 | <¶> |
| Woo, W//Lee, L | <tab> | 1995 | <tab> | Rain Hats | <tab> | J. of Clothing | <tab> | 2 | <¶> |
| Carlos, C//Luis, L | <tab> | 1991 | <tab> | Cell Phone | <tab> | J. of Phones | <tab> | 3 | <¶> |
| Tab-Delimited File Example for a Single Custom EndNote Reference Type as the Default | |||||||||
Note: Ensure that the field names that appear in the second line match those assigned to your custom reference type. In the example above "My Reference Type" would the name of the custom reference type, and "F1," "F2," etc. would be the name of the fields used in the custom reference type. Tabs are indicated by "<tab>" in the examples above.
First Line: Using Multiple Reference Types
If you could not make separate files based on reference type, you can specify each reference type within one file. In this case, your first line must be an asterisk (*), followed by "Generic" and a paragraph mark. then the list of field names found in the Generic reference type, starting with a field for "Reference Type." Use the Reference Type column to define the actual EndNote reference type names. For example:
| *Generic<¶> | |||||||||
| Reference Type | <tab> | Author | <tab> | Year | <tab> | Title | <tab> | Publisher | <¶> |
| Book | <tab> | Jones, J | <tab> | 1994 | <tab> | Easy Food | <tab> | Avalon | <¶> |
| Book Section | <tab> | Woo, W//Lee, L | <tab> | 1995 | <tab> | Rain Hats | <tab> | Nourse | <¶> |
| Web Page | <tab> | Carlos, C | <tab> | 2020 | <tab> | EndNote | <tab> | Clarivate | <¶> |
| Tab-Delimited File Example with No Default Reference Type | |||||||||
Note: Ensure that the generic field names for the reference type (Modify Reference Types dialog) appear in line 2. In the examples above, note that in the first example for the standard Journal Article reference type there is a "Journal" field name, but the Generic name for that field would be"Secondary Title." When importing multiple reference types, "Secondary Title" would appear in the field names, not "Journal."
Second Line: EndNote Field Names
As stated above, the second line of the tab-delimited file must contain the actual field names used by EndNote. The order of the field names does not matter as long as they correspond to the order of the data in the rows beneath them and correspond to the names of the default reference type (or to the generic names when importing multiple reference types).
For example, if your default reference type is "*Journal Article," the field names in the second line of your file will be those of the Journal Article reference type:
| *Journal Article<¶> | |||||||||
| Author | <tab> | Year | <tab> | Title | <tab> | Journal | <tab> | Volume | <¶> |
| Jones, J//Shoe, S | <tab> | 1994 | <tab> | Easy Food | <tab> | J. of Eating | <tab> | 1 | <¶> |
| Woo, W//Lee, L | <tab> | 1995 | <tab> | Rain Hats | <tab> | J. of Clothing | <tab> | 2 | <¶> |
| Carlos, C//Luis, L | <tab> | 1991 | <tab> | Cell Phone | <tab> | J. of Phones | <tab> | 3 | <¶> |
| EndNote Field Names Table for Journal Article Fields | |||||||||
Note: The field names must be separated by tabs and a paragraph break must follow the last field name.
Additional Considerations
- ANSI, ASCII, or UTF-8 formatted plain text files can be imported. This means that no font styles or text styles can be preserved during import.
- All field names and reference type names in the file must be identical to those in EndNote. See the List of Reference Types for a listing of all of the reference types. Use the links in the list to access templates showing the field names.
- Multiple author names should be separated by semicolons (;) or by two forward slashes (//).
- Fields cannot contain tabs or paragraph marks. Let the lines of data "wrap" to the next line.
- Leading and trailing spaces are removed during importing.
- No uppercase or lowercase conversion is made during importing.
- A reserved field name called "Unused" may be used for data that you do not want imported into EndNote.