Exporting to Spreadsheets or Databases

EndNote includes a Tab-Delimited output style to provide an export format compatible with most spreadsheet or generic database programs.

To export references from EndNote in the Tab-Delimited format:

  1. Open the library from which you will export, and select the references you want to export.
  • To export all of the references in the library, click the All References group.
  • To export a subset of references, select a group or perform a search to show the subset of references you want to include. You can further limit the list of references to export by selecting just those references from the current reference list.
  1. From the File menu, select Export.
  2. From the Save as type list at the bottom of the dialog, select the type of file to be exported. For databases, use the plain text (.txt) format. See Supported Formats for Export for more information on file types.
  3. From the Output style list at the bottom of the dialog, select the Tab-Delimited style. If you do not see the style on your favorites list, choose Select Another Style… to choose it from the list of all installed output styles.
  4. Select the Export Selected References option, if desired. If you want to export all of the references in the current  list, clear the checkbox.
  5. Navigate to the folder where you want to save the file, enter a name for the exported file, and click the Save button to save the file.
  6. Open your spreadsheet or database program. Follow the instructions of your database program for opening or importing a tab-delimited file. To add a heading row to the file, see the field list below for a list of fields included in the style.

Notes: The Export feature creates a new file; it does not append to an existing file. If you enter the name of a file that already exists, that file will be overwritten.

The Export command exports only text; images are not included.

Field Order in the Tab-Delimited Style

To help you create column headings in your spreadsheet or databases, here are the fields included in the Tab-Delimited style, as of this writing, in the order they appear in the style:

  • Reference Type
  • Author
  • Year
  • Title
  • Secondary Author
  • Secondary Title
  • Place Published
  • Publisher
  • Volume
  • Number of Volumes
  • Number
  • Pages
  • Section
  • Tertiary Author
  • Tertiary Title
  • Edition
  • Date
  • Type of Work
  • Subsidiary Author
  • Short Title
  • Alternate Title
  • ISBN/ISSN
  • DOI
  • Original Publication
  • Reprint Edition
  • Reviewed Item
  • Custom 1
  • Custom 2
  • Custom 3
  • Custom 4
  • Custom 5
  • Custom 6
  • Custom 7
  • Custom 8
  • Accession Number
  • Call Number
  • Label
  • Keywords
  • Abstract
  • Notes
  • Research Notes
  • URL
  • File Attachments
  • Author Address
  • Figure
  • Caption
  • Access Date
  • Translated Author
  • Translated Title
  • Name of Database
  • Database Provider
  • Language