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July 3, 2026

Camera-Ready Manuscript Checklist

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Acceptance isn't the finish line. Camera-ready submissions get bounced back for reasons that have nothing to do with the science — wrong template, missing forms, a reference file in the wrong format. This checklist covers what actually trips people up.

Most camera-ready deadlines are short — a week to ten days is typical — and most venues won't extend them for formatting problems. Work through this list in order; each step tends to reveal issues the next step depends on.

The checklist

  1. Match the exact template. Download the current-year template from the venue's own page, not a cached copy from a previous submission or a colleague's old files. Margins, fonts, and page limits change between years, and reviewers rejecting a paper for wrong formatting is more common than it should be.

  2. Fix author info and ORCID. Confirm every author's name matches their ORCID profile exactly (including diacritics), affiliations are current as of submission, and the corresponding author is clearly marked. This is also the last easy point to add or drop an author before it becomes a formal correction request later.

  3. Prepare the bibliography in the required format. LaTeX-based venues want BibTeX; some Word-based journals expect an EndNote or RIS import instead. Check what your specific venue expects, then use the free Reference Converter to convert between BibTeX, RIS, and EndNote if your reference manager exported the wrong one.

  4. Check figures meet resolution and color requirements. Export at the DPI the venue specifies (300 DPI is common for print, but check — some venues want vector formats for line art). If the venue ever prints in grayscale, open your color figures in grayscale preview and confirm lines and bars are still distinguishable.

  5. Complete copyright, funding, and conflict-of-interest forms. These are usually submitted separately from the PDF, through a different portal, and are easy to forget under deadline pressure. A missing signed copyright form can hold up publication even after the manuscript itself is accepted.

  6. Verify page and file-size limits. Camera-ready limits are often stricter than the original submission limit once references, appendices, and any added reviewer-requested content are counted. Recount pages in the final compiled PDF, not the draft.

  7. Do one final full read-through of the compiled PDF. Open the exact file you're about to upload. Compilation bugs — a broken cross-reference, a figure that didn't update, a citation key that resolved to "[?]" — only show up in the final output, not the source.

If you're not sure your bibliography converted cleanly

A malformed .bib file or a missing DOI is one of the most common last-minute camera-ready problems, because it compiles without erroring but produces a broken reference list. The free BibTeX Validator checks syntax, required fields per entry type, and (optionally) whether your DOIs actually resolve — worth a two-minute check before you upload.

For a broader pre-submission check that goes beyond formatting — figure integrity, citation support, methodological blind spots — Paper Review runs a four-layer red-team pass on the manuscript itself.