EndNote Preferences

The settings for configuring EndNote’s display, formatting preferences, and other options are organized in the Preferences section of the EndNote program.

To access EndNote preferences:

  1. From the Edit menu, select Preferences.
  2. A list of the available preference panels appears on the left side of the window. Click on the name of a panel in the list that corresponds to the setting you would like to change. Below are the topics covering these preferences.
Saving or Discarding Your Changes

All of the preferences panels have the following options:

  • EndNote Defaults: Reverts the settings for just the current panel to the original EndNote settings.
  • Revert Panel: Removes any changes made to the current panel since it was last saved.
  • OK: Saves all changes to the preferences and closes the Preferences window.
  • Cancel: Discards all changes to the preferences and closes the Preferences window.
  • Apply: Saves and applies all changes to the preferences and keeps the Preferences window open so that you can continue to modify the preferences as necessary. 
Where Preference Settings are Saved

Most general preferences are saved in the Windows registry. This includes many EndNote Preferences, subject bibliography settings, and Cite While You Write settings. Some preferences are stored in user-specific folders; this allows multiple users to access a single library while preserving each user’s preferred settings. The preferences folders listed below store files such as the connect.log file created during an online search, the RefTypeTable.xml file that contains reference type definitions, and a Searches folder that contains saved search strategies.

Windows 10 and 11: C:\Users\User Name\ App Data\Roaming\EndNote