Endnote/NWP workflow and mini-tutorial...

[scottwhitlock]

In the feature request post, someone mentioned better support for Endnote. I mention in that post that Endnote is pretty compatible already. I would like to share my Endnote workflow and welcome comments on how to make it even more efficient. This can also serve as a reference to getting the most out of Endnote for users who are moving from Word to NWP and are used to CWYW features (which are VBA based and will take a while to reimplement in Word 2008 but in the meantime are often clunky and slow Word X and 2004 down to a crawl). Using this workflow, I don't miss Word and CWYW. Note that this is using Endnote X and NWP 1.0.

1. In your services menu (NWP -> Services), you will find Endnote. There are three VERY useful commands there: Insert Citation, Find Citation, and Format Paper.

2. Using NWP, you can assign a keystroke to each. I have assigned the following: Cmd-IC for Insert Citation, Cmd-FC for Find Citation, and Cmd-FP for Format Paper. These menu items are available in ANY Cocoa application, so you can use it in Pages and OmniOutliner as well. These keystrokes come in VERY handy when writing (for example, I go to Endnote, select the citation(s) I want, and then press cmd-IC to insert the temp citation). Let me explain each one:

• Insert Citation - Pretty self-explanatory. Inserts the citation currently selected in Endnote. Note: If you are used to CWYW, you may find that the citation looks pretty funny. This is a temporary citation that will be changed by Endnote when you format a paper. You may think this is weird, but you can now completely edit the citation (remove author, add page number, etc.--see the instructions in the Endnote manual pdf).
  
  Find Citation - You can type a name of an author, select it, and then select Find Citation to bring up a dialogue box with a list of all Endnote citations with that authors name. Simply select the citation, click Insert Citation, and you're done.
  
  Format Paper - This finds any citation in the selected texts, and then brings up the format paper dialogue in Endnote, which allows you to save another RTF as a formatted paper with all temporary citations formatted properly and a formatted bibliography inserted at the end of the paper.

3. After you are finished writing your paper (complete with temporary citations), you simply save in NWP. This is where NWP's decision to save as RTF natively comes in VERY handy. Endnote's Format Paper command requires that the file be in RTF. So, simply go to Endnote, select Format Paper from the Tools menu (it's something like Format RTF... in earlier version) and this brings up the open dialogue where you can select your original NWP file. Endnote will search your file for temporary citations and list them here.

4. Click Format, and Endnote will ask you to save your RTF in a different location (so as to leave the original with temp citations intact). Once you click save, Endnote will create an RTF with all temp citations formatted and will attach a formatted bibliography at the end. Because NWP is already in RTF, all styles, formatting, and document properties are maintained (I think this alone makes NWP the best alternative to Word for working with Endnote, because Pages and Mellel and Mariner Write all lose things in the conversion from native file format to RTF and back again; Nisus loses nothing).

5. It should be noted that you need to use the original file for edits, etc. and then reformat if you change (add, remove, edit) any of the citations. This will update the bibliography, etc.

5. You may also want to create an Applescript macro to go to Endnote. This, luckily is very simple. Your applescript code should look like this:

Tell application 'Endnote' activate
End tell

Save this script in your NWP Macros folder, assign a keystroke to it, and you can get to Endnote with one keystroke (similar to Go to Endnote command in Word).

6. Also, I create a "Go to NWP" applescript and save it in my Scripts folder. If you have the scripts menu activated in the toolbar, you can simply click it and go back to NWP from Endnote.

Whew!

Using this method, I hope you will find a way to do the same things that CWYW/Word/Endnote do in NWP (and because Word X and 2004 choke on it and become horribly slow when using it, I hope you will see how this is better). The only drawbacks are that you do have to go through the formatting step and you often have to work with two versions of any document, the original with temp citations and the formatted version. These are very minor drawbacks, however.

Hope this helps anyone who is having problems with NWP and Endnote. Any suggestions or additions are welcome.

Scott

[scottwhitlock]

Endnote X1 has support for Applescript. Has anyone (preferably someone who knows more about Applescript than I) played around with it? Could we create scripts which would automate a lot of the workflow with Endnote/NWP? I know there's talk on using Endnote's Applescript capabilities to make it completely compatible with Pages in the Pages forum (which I would definitely like to see for when I am writing graphics heavy documents--Pages does not do a good job with roundtrip RTF export. Footnotes, graphics captions, and textboxes are often lost). I wonder what we could do here.

Perhaps:

Save rtf from Nisus and format paper in Endnote in same folder as "OriginalRTF (formatted).rtf" and then reopen the formatted paper back in Nisus.

And that's just for starts. I wonder if we could write something comparable to Endnote/Word's CWYW in Applescript and Nisus Macros? In other words, a macro that would, at a defined interval, collect all temp citations, copy them into a temp file, send them to Endnote for formatting, and then reapply them using Nisus's advanced find/replace?

If we could get NWP to work with Endnote similar to how Word does, this would be a coup!

The included Applescript dictionary looks pretty powerful, but once again, my Applescript skill is rudimentary at best. Anyone who knows better than I willing to elucidate?

Scott

[stackowax]

At one time I had figured out how to create a macro to insert citations from Endnote (using the keystrokes suggested here by Scott). That was the first and last time i created a macro. Unfortunately, the geniuses at Apple's genius bar decided that trashing all of my preferences was the only way to fix a problem [unrelated to Nisus Writer]), and it took my one and only macro Clearly I don't have much practice at this and I'm not finding the manual much help.

I can insert a citation from Endnote using the service menu--I just can't figure out how to set up a macro to do this. Anybody willing to explain this in step by step fashion (or direct me where I can go to learn how).

[dude]

I made a comment saying something like, choose EN or BE and give better support for one or the other. I think we can all agree there can be better functionality between NWP and End Note. This is a must! Pick one and get on with it I say.

Nice write up and post. Let's hope the powers that be are listening and coding this stuff in as we talk about it.

[dude]

I wanted to say that Sente should be thrown in the mix. Probably the best of the three considering the price range in this market segment.