Finding, Editing, and Deleting References in a Library
Finding Cited References in a Library
You can quickly jump from a bibliographic in-text citation (not a figure citation) to the corresponding EndNote reference.
To find an EndNote reference:
- Make sure both your Word document and your EndNote library are open.
- Highlight the citation(s) in your Word document.
- On the EndNote tab, select Edit Library Reference(s).
EndNote goes to the corresponding reference for editing.
Editing a Reference in the Library
You may insert a citation in a Word document, and then later edit the corresponding reference in EndNote. Are those changes reflected in your Word document?
Your citations and bibliography will reflect the edits the next time the citations in the paper are updated with the EndNote library open. Open your document, open your EndNote library, and click Update Citations and Bibliography on the EndNote 2025 tab.
EndNote will not be able to make the update if the library is not open during formatting. Instead, it will take the original reference information from Word’s Traveling Library (see The Traveling Library).
Note: The author’s last name and the publication year are both used to identify a reference, so changes to these items in an EndNote reference are not reflected in the in-text citation. Cite While You Write will no longer identify a match between the citation and the reference if the citation is unformatted. If the citation is formatted, it will use reference information from Word’s field codes to update the citation and bibliography (The Traveling Library).
If you make changes to a figure in an EndNote reference, you must manually replace the figure in your Word document.
Deleting a Reference from the Library
The first time a citation is formatted, EndNote uses information from the unformatted citation to look in the open library and find the corresponding reference. If you later reformat, EndNote again looks in the library for that reference. If the reference has been deleted from the library, EndNote takes the reference information from hidden Field Codes in Microsoft Word (The Traveling Library).
So, if you deleted a cited reference from the library, the required information is still available in the hidden field codes surrounding each formatted citation—even though the reference is no longer in the library.
However, an unformatted citation is a temporary placeholder. If a citation is unformatted, and you have deleted the corresponding reference from the EndNote library, EndNote will not be able to find the reference information for formatting.
If you add the reference to the library again, it will be assigned a different record number. You would need to reinsert the citation in Word.
Record Numbers
EndNote assigns a unique record number to each reference as it is added to your library. These record numbers appear in temporary citations to ensure that the correct reference is used when the paper is formatted:
{Argus, 1991 #11}
The record number for a reference is also visible in the title bar of the Reference panel.
Note that:
- EndNote automatically assigns a record number sequentially to each reference as it is added to a library.
- If the same reference appears in two different libraries, the record numbers will most likely be different.
- Record numbers are never reused or reassigned within a library. When you delete a reference, the corresponding record number is never used again in that library.
- You cannot modify or reassign record numbers.
- We recommend that you not rely on EndNote’s record numbers as a means of filing or numbering your office reprints, because you have no control over this number. Instead, enter your own unique number into the Label field, and use that number for your reprints.
If you add the reference to the library again, it will be assigned a new, different record number, so EndNote still will not be able to find a match to your unformatted citation when formatting your paper. You will need to reinsert the citation into the paper using the new reference in your library.