EndNote (Desktop Version): Convert to Plain Text

There are three main reasons why you might want to remove EndNote field codes from your Word document:

1. If you are submitting your paper to an instructor. Many instructors do not want EndNote-formatted papers because the EndNote coding does not work well with Word's commenting feature.
2. If EndNote is not properly formatting a citation, you can convert your document to plain text and safely correct the error directly in your Word document.
3. If you are submitting your paper to a publisher for possible publication. Publishers do not want the version of your paper with EndNote field codes.

Note: You should not remove field codes from your Word document until you are at the very end of your writing process, including having all of your references in the correct order, because doing this removes the link between your Word document and your EndNote library. Always save your original document that is linked to EndNote for any future edits.

1. To remove EndNote field codes from your paper, click Convert Citations and Bibliography > Convert to Plain Text.
2. A dialog box will appear that explains that you are about to create a new copy of your Word document which does not have EndNote field codes. The original version of your document (that is connected to EndNote) will remain open. You can save the new version of your document with a slightly different name that indicates it is the version without EndNote field codes (e.g., [filename]noEN.doc).
3. In this new version of your document, you can safely edit/delete text as you would in a normal Word document. Just keep in mind that if you change the order of your references in this new version of your paper, the numbering/order will be off because EndNote cannot reorder for you. (If you need to reorder any references, you will need to do that in the original version of your document that is still linked to EndNote and Convert to Plain Text again.)