I have used EndNote for years, but hadn't upgraded my version since v.6 which I considered to be the first stable Mac OS X release. I downloaded the upgrade through the DigitalRiver link at EndNote's website without trouble. The software accepted my old (v.6) serial number as proof of prior ownership.

I followed the instructions for installation which basically was to trash the old application and to drag the new one to the Applications folder. The application converted my old format library to a new version without trouble. However it soon became apparent that the program had glitches. For example opening a reference gave a ""Service Error: Generic". I contacted customer service via the website and they sent me an automated reply. An actual response came 2 days later with a link to their website detailing how to remove a corrupt preferences folder. They hit the nail on the head as this seems to have cured the problems.

From a superficial standpoint the GUI does not seem to be hugely different. The library view is not as compact but the font size can be reduced in the application preferences. EndNote has fixed the old problem of an immovable toolbar that used to float over the old (v.6) application windows and would often prevent the user from being able to click and drag a window to a new location. Instead each window now has its own set of big goofy looking icons along the top of each window.

The current version has two new features that are an obvious improvement. One is the ability to organize references into groups in a left side bar. The lack of ability to organize a library in the past meant that I had a dozen various ad hoc libraries scattered around my hard drive. The second new feature is the ability to attach PDFs. This means that EndNote can be used to keep track of journal articles and quickly linking to them for reading. For this purpose, it is not as good as the (much nice looking) Papers application (http://mekentosj.com), because no preview of the PDF is displayed in the library window. The latter application, however, will not provide endnotes to a manuscript.

I tried out two connection filters that I commonly use, PubMed and Ovid. They both connected to the online databases without problems but neither of them imported the journal name. This means that that imported citations are not usable in a manuscript. This should be fixable if I can figure out the correct changes to make to the import filters.