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EndNote: Formatting Citations

Help page for EndNote bibliographic management software

Formatting Your Citations

EndNote Basic provides multiple ways to format citations. Using the main toolbar above, hover over the Format tab and select Bibliography below it.

The EndNote Basic Toolbar. The option "Format" (fourth button from the left) is selected and below it, the "Bibliography" (furthest on the left) is circled.

This will open a page with three drop-down menus. The first one allows you to select the group of citations you would like formatted. The second drop-down allows you to decide which citation style you would like to use. The final one relates to the file format of those citations (that can either as a HTML file, a TXT file, or a RTF file). 

Three drop-down menus (the topmost for selecting your citation group, the middle for selecting the citation style, and the bottom for the file format). Below those three drop-down menus are three blue buttons: the left stating "Save," the middle stating "E-mail" and the right stating "Preview/Print"

Below those drop-down menus are three blue buttons to format those citations. You can select "save" to download those formatted citations in the file format you selected from the third drop-down menu, email them to yourself, or preview them to possibly print out.

A sample of the preview page. It is in a pop-up window and the following image has two citations. There is also a blue button at the top for printing the page.

Formatting Papers

In addition to the Cite While You Write Tool, EndNote Basic also allows for users to upload their papers onto their website, and they will automatically reformat all citations. This will only work though with rich text format ( .rtf files). In EndNote Basic, select the Format Paper heading under the Format tab. 

The EndNote Basic Toolbar. The option "Format" (fourth button from the left) is selected and below it, the "Bibliography" (third button from the left) is circled.

To format the paper, upload the .rtf file to the system, and select the citation style you would like to transform those citations into. The system will then match the footnotes with the citations found in your My References citations NOTE: if these are new citations, they will not work; the reference must be in the "My References" page to work properly. For more on how this paper formatting works, visit the EndNote guide on formatting papers. 

There is a place for users to upload a file. Below that is a drop-down menu to select the citation style. There is also a checkbox below that for ignoring unmatched citations and a blow button to initiate the formatting.

Exporting Citations

You can export any citations from EndNote basic to other citation manager software programs. To do so select the Export Reference sheading on the far right of the page under the Format tab. 

The EndNote Basic Toolbar. The option "Format" (fourth button from the left) is selected and below it, the "Export References" (furthest on the right) is circled.

There will be two drop down menus on this page. The first will allow you to select the citation style. The second relates to the citation manager format you want to export to (the options here are BibTeX, RefMan, and the desktop version of EndNote). Below those drop-down menus are three blue buttons to format those citations. You can select "save" to download those formatted citations in the file format you selected from the third drop-down menu, email them to yourself, or preview them to possibly print out.

Two drop-down menus (the first for selecting your citation group, and the other for the export style). Below those two drop-down menus are three blue buttons: the left stating "Save," the middle stating "E-mail" and the right stating "Preview/Print"

Options for Formatting Citations

With EndNote Basic, there are four ways to format citations. Those include:

  • Formatting through EndNote Basic Directly
  • Formatting your paper directly through EndNote Basic
  • Exporting citations to other Citation Managers
  • Cite While you Write

This page will cover the first three, For more on what Cite While You Write, visit the Cite While You Write tab on this guide.