The Duplicates preferences panel sets criteria for the Find Duplicates command on the References menu (that command is described in Finding Duplicate References). These settings are also used to highlight or discard duplicate references when retrieving references from an online database.
To access these settings, go to the EndNoteEdit menu, select Preferences, and click Duplicates in the list of preferences.
By default, EndNote identifies duplicate references in a library as references of the same reference type with matching Author, Year, and Title fields. Use this panel to customize the way EndNote identifies duplicate references.
To select the fields that EndNote should compare when finding duplicate references, click in the check boxes to the left of the field names.
The "Generic" names of the fields are used here. For details about what the Generic field names correspond to for each reference type, see List of Reference Types. You may select as many fields as you want to make the duplicate detection more or less stringent.
You may also set the "Criteria" to have EndNote compare the fields and look for an exact match or be more lenient in the comparison and ignore spacing and punctuation.
When you select the “Automatically discard duplicates” check box, EndNote automatically discards duplicate references when retrieving references from an online database. The duplicates are never inserted into the library. This setting applies when you perform a search in Integrated Library Mode or Online Search Mode.
If you are using Integrated Library & Online Search Mode when performing an online database search, it applies to the permanent All References library.
If you are using Online Search Mode when performing an online database search, it applies to the temporary Online References library.
Note: These settings do not apply to the "Merge Duplicates in Bibliography" setting defined in Formatting Preferences. The duplicates are never inserted into the bibliography.