Finding and Inserting Citations in Word

Finding and Inserting Citations in Microsoft Word

You can search for EndNote references and insert them without ever leaving Word.

This is the easiest way to find and insert a citation into a Word document:

Open the EndNote libraries that contain the references you wish to cite.
Open the Word document and position the cursor at the location where you would like the citation.
On the EndNote 2025 tab, click the Insert Citation button, or select the Insert Citation drop-down and then Insert Citation.
In the text box at the top, enter text to identify the reference you wish to cite. EndNote assumes an "and" between each word, and will search all fields in all the references in your open EndNote library.
Press Enter or click Find and EndNote compares the text to text in your EndNote references and lists the matching reference(s). If no references match your text, you need to modify your search text and search again.
Identify and highlight the appropriate reference(s).
Use the Insert button drop-down to display a menu, and select from:

Insert: To insert the citation and format it as defined by the currently selected output style. (This would be the same result as simply clicking on the Insert button.)
Display as: Author (Year): Select this menu option to display both the author name and the year in the highlighted citation, but with the author name appearing to be outside the citation marker.
Exclude Author: Select this to omit the author name from the formatted citation.
Exclude Year: Select this to omit the date from the formatted citation.
Exclude Author & Year: Select this to omit both the author name and the year from an Author-Date formatted citation. This is usually used when you want only page numbers to appear in the citation.
Show Only in Bibliography: Select this option to display the selected citation only in the bibliography, not in the body of the paper.

Note: You can click the Insert button (not select the drop-down) to quickly select the default Insert command.

Citations are inserted directly into your paper in the same font as the surrounding text, using the Normal style font. Once a citation is inserted and formatted, it contains complete reference information in hidden codes.

You can insert citations in an existing manuscript or as you write. Remember to save your document as you work.

To format your citations and generate a bibliography, see Configuring the Bibliography in Microsoft Word. In most cases, Instant Formatting applies as you insert citations (see Instant Formatting in Microsoft Word).