Quick Tip: Changing the Display Fields and Sort order

• Changing the display fields
• Changing the sort order

Changing the display fields

The Author, Year, Title, Journal Title, Reference Type and URL fields of your references will display in the Endnote X4 library window by default, but you can change this to display other fields in the references if you wish, for example keyword or notes. This is particularly helpful if you have added extra information to your records such as keywords, chapter headings or course codes. Once you have your required fields displaying you can then choose to sort your library by any of these terms by clicking on the column headings-useful if you wish to sort by your own keyword or course code. You can also add to the fields being displayed - up to 8 fields can be shown in version X4

1. From the Endnote Edit menu select Preferences
2. Select Display Fields
3. Select the fields required from the drop down menus (choose 'Unused' for any columns where a display is not required.)
4. Click on OK to apply these changes to your library

Changing the sort order

The references in a library will display according to the order of the field in the first column; by default this will be alphabetically by author's name. If there is more than one work by the same author those will file by the second column, initially the Year field.

You can re-sort this order by clicking on the column headings. For example, clicking on Year will re-sort the library by date of publication in ascending order, and clicking a second time on Year will reverse that so the most recently published items come to the top of the list. Clicking on the heading of the first column will restore the original sort order.

You can also permanently re-sort the library into a different order by any of the fields in a reference whether showing in the display or not. This is particularly useful if you wish to sort by more than one criterion. For example you may wish to sort initially by author but change the sorting so that when there is more than one work by the same author these file by e.g. the journal title field rather then the default setting of year field.

To change the sort order:

1. From the Endnote Tools menu choose Sort Library. The Sort Options dialog box is displayed.
2. Select the order of the field(s) you wish to sort by (one or more) from the drop down lists.
3. Click on the box(es) on the right to indicate ascending or descending order. This will be applied to both numerical and alphabetical sequences.
4. Click on the Sort button.