Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
The version of a manuscript an author deposits in an institutional repository after peer review is complete, containing all reviewer-requested revisions but not the publisher's typesetting.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
The version submitted for peer review, before any reviewer feedback has been incorporated, is a preprint, not a post-print.
- Not an instance
The publisher's final formatted PDF with its own pagination, DOI, and branding is the version of record, which some sources confusingly also label 'post-print'; check the specific journal's policy rather than assuming.
Editorial commentary
Post-print refers to a manuscript version that has been through peer review and revised accordingly, as distinct from the version originally submitted (the preprint) and the publisher’s own formatted, typeset version of record. In current CASRAI and Open Policy Finder usage, this stage is more precisely called the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM): the author’s final peer-reviewed text, incorporating changes requested by reviewers and the editor, but before the publisher applies its own copy-editing, layout, and branding.
“Post-print” is genuinely contested terminology and worth treating carefully: some publishers and repositories use it as a direct synonym for the Author Accepted Manuscript; others use it to mean the publisher’s final, typeset version, i.e. what CASRAI and most funder policies call the version of record; and older literature sometimes distinguishes an unrevised “post-print” from a separately labelled AAM. Because self-archiving and funder open-access policies attach different embargo periods and permissions to different manuscript versions, relying on the label alone is risky. The safest approach is to check a specific journal’s self-archiving terms in a source such as Open Policy Finder (formerly Sherpa Romeo), which now records permissions per manuscript version explicitly (submitted/preprint, accepted manuscript, and published version) rather than relying on a single label.
Also known as
Author's Accepted Manuscript. Author Final Version
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Post-print"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/post-print" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/post-print",
"name": "Post-print",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/post-print",
"description": "A manuscript draft after it has been peer reviewed.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/research-outputs#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/post-print",
"sameAs": [
"http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeoinfo.html",
"Author's Accepted Manuscript. Author Final Version"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"dateModified": "2026-08-17T01:54:06",
"inLanguage": "en"
}
