Using the "scan" command in Word 2011 - problems

[Rocky Vega]

After inserting citations with Bookends with drag-and-drop and after employing the scan command from the script menu in order to create a bibliography I get the following remark from Bookends: "The citation 2008 was found in 5 references. Which one do you want to use?" How do I approach this issue? Why can't Bookends just choose the correct reference??

[Jon]

If the citation in Word is just "2008" (the year) it's almost certainly going to be ambiguous (presumably you have 5 references from that year in your database, and Bookends doesn't know which one you mean). Make sure you're using one of the default Bookends forms to create the temp citation (e.g. Author, Date, Unique ID). If you are using a format of your own devising to create the temp citation you have to make sure it's complete enough to be unambiguous. Using your own formats for this purpose is really a power user feature.

Check in preferences and make sure temp citations are in the format Author, Date, Unique ID. If you have any further problems with this please contact tech support.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Rocky Vega]

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I´m using the citation method that you describe, i.e that is unique to Bookends with author/year/unique ID. After inserting the citations and scanning the document I have to choose from a list of articles from 2008. After choosing the right article for each citation, my bibliography looks like this:

This is a test (1, 1, 1), this a new test (2, 2, 2), another test (3, 3, 3), third test (2, 2, 2) and the last one (4, 4, 4)
1. de Bree R, Verdonck-de Leeuw IM, Keizer AL, Houffelaar A, Leemans CR. Touch screen computer-assisted health-related quality of life and distress data collection in head and neck cancer patients. Clinical otolaryngology : official journal of ENT-UK ; official journal of Netherlands Society for Oto-Rhino-Laryngology & Cervico-Facial Surgery. May 01, 2008;33:138-142.
2. Sucher JF, Moore FA, Todd SR, Sailors RM, McKinley BA. Computerized clinical decision support: a technology to implement and validate evidence based guidelines. J Trauma. 1 Feb, 2008;64:520-537.
3. Wainer H. Computer Adaptive Testing: A Primer. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; April 2, 2000
4. Hilarius DL, Kloeg PH, Gundy CM, Aaronson NK. Use of health-related quality-of-life assessments in daily clinical oncology nursing practice: a community hospital-based intervention study. Cancer. Aug 1, 2008;113:628-637.


Very strange. Is the database corrupt?

[Jon]

Nope, the problem is that Bookends is being told to use the comma as the citation separator. As a result, for {Smith, 2008, #23234} it thinks there are 3 citations: Smith, 2008, and #23234. You should have the separator set to semicolon (the factory default), not comma (which is only used for BibTeX citations), in Preferences.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Rocky Vega]

That was correct! I changed the separator from comma to semicolon and now it works fine! I´m grateful for your invaluable help, really excellent!