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What are Output Styles?

EndNote's output styles allow you to format your Word document in a variety of bibliographic styles. Currently there are over 5,000 styles to choose from. The most popular styles are American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA), JAMA/American Medical Association (AMA), and Vancouver.

In Cite While You Write (CWYW) - the EndNote feature that allows you to use it to format citations in Microsoft Word - your references will be formatted in whatever style you select.

Selecting a Different Style

The Output Style box comes preloaded with only a few styles. If you don't see the format you want to use in the Bibliographic Output Style box, you can choose a different one.

  1. Select the drop down arrow next to the Output Style box (Annotated is the default style)
  2.  Click on Select Another Style...
  3. Scroll down the list of journals and highlight the one you want or type the name of the style you want in the Quick Search box, then Enter. 
  4. Select Choose
  5. Your selected format style will display in the output style box

     

What if EndNote Doesn't Have the Output Style I Need?

If EndNote has not developed an output style for the journal or format you need, you can edit an existing output style to suit your needs. See the box below for instructions on how to edit an output style. 
Note: Be sure to check the most current list of available output styles on the EndNote website first.

Edit an Output Style: Process Overview

1) To access and edit an EndNote output style, go to Edit Output Styles > Open Style Manager

Location of Open Style Manager on menu bar

2) Highlight the style you wish to edit and click Edit

Location of output style Edit button

3) VERY IMPORTANT: Without making any changes to the file, go to File Save As. Give this copy of the output style a new name and Save it. This step will preserve the original copy of the output style should you need to return to it at a later date.

The file is saved in your personal Styles folder (e.g., My Documents > EndNote > Styles folder). The new style will remain open. The original style will be left untouched.

4) Your options for editing a style are listed on the left sidebar. Universal settings that affect the formatting of all reference are listed first (Punctuation through Sections). This is where you can make changes to how Page Numbers (e.g., 125-126 or 125-6) and Journal Names (whether to use abbreviations or not) will display.

To specify formatting of in-text citations specifically, review the options under Citations. Often users want to make changes to theTemplates used for in-text citations. All of the options under Citations (Templates through Sort Order) apply only to in-text citation formatting.

To specify formatting of references in your bibliography, review the options under Bibliography. Again, users often want to make changes to the Templates used for each references type. In the image below, the template for the Journal Article reference type is circled. Click anywhere in the template to edit it. (Note: Be very careful when editing a template; it isn't always as easy as you might think. Make sure you review EndNote's Rules of Dependence before making edits to templates: Search for (Ctrl+F) Rules of Dependence in the EndNote X7 manual (Windows or Mac [Mac X7 manual coming late summer]).)

All of the options under Bibliography (Templates through Title Capitalization) apply only to the bibliography section of your paper.

Layout of output style settings

 This page is copied with permission from the EndNote Guide from Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences,The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Last Updated: Feb 1, 2024 3:54 PM