Endnote Desktop

If you try to open your library and are confronted by an error that says your Endnote Library is damaged or corrupt there are a few options you can try to fix it.

From within Endnote

• Open EndNote program
• From Library menu select Recover Library
• Click OK in the pop-up message window
• Select your damaged EndNote library then click Open
• Choose where you would like to save the recovered library and edit the name of the file if you wish to, then click Save
• A dialog box will appear to inform you that references were recovered into the new library, click OK
• Then simply open the newly created library which should now contain all your references

Recreate from the .data folder

If the .data folder still exists then you may be able to recreate your Library using it.

Windows users:

• Open Notepad on your computer
• Select File>Save As to save the blank notepad document
• Give the file the same name as your .Data folder adding .enl to the name
• ie – if your Library folder is called My Endnote Library then you should rename the notepad file to 'My Endnote Library.enl'
• Save it in the same place on your computer where the .Data folder exists
• The newly created file should display an Endnote icon.
• Open it and check your library has been recreated properly.

Mac users:

• Open TextEdit application on your computer
• Select File>Save As to save the blank textedit document
• Give the file the same name as your .Data folder and select Rich Text Document as file format
• Remove the tick for Hide extension
• Save it in the same place on your computer where the Data folder exists.
• In Finder, go to folder you saved your file, click on the file name and change the extension from .rtf to .enl
• The .enl file should now appear with an EndNote icon. Double-click to open it and view your recreated library

Recreate from a Word Document

If neither of the above options work you may also be able to recreate your Library from the Word document you are working on.

• Open your word document. Go to EndNote20 tab, and click on drop down arrow next to Tools and select Export Traveling Library.
• Click A new EndNote library as the option to export the references to (you can also choose to add references to an existing EndNote library)
• Click OK
• Choose where you would like to save the new library that will be created containing your references and give it a name. By default it will be named Untitled
• A dialog box will appear to inform you that the export is complete. Then simply open the newly created library which should now contain all the references from your Word document