{"id":2983,"date":"2026-07-03T09:25:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/biorxiv-submission-guidelines\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:25:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:25:58","slug":"biorxiv-submission-guidelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/biorxiv-submission-guidelines\/","title":{"rendered":"BioRxiv Submission Guidelines: A 5-Step Process for First-Time Authors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BioRxiv submission guidelines require a single PDF (or Word file plus separate figure files), a free author-area registration, an article-category selection, and a two-step in-house-plus-Affiliate screening that typically clears in 24-48 hours.<\/strong> There is no submission fee, no mandatory template, and no peer review before posting. This guide walks first-time authors through each stage, the templates available, and the reasons manuscripts most often get sent back.<\/p>\n<p>bioRxiv is the life-sciences preprint server operated by the non-profit <strong>openRxiv<\/strong>; a preprint is a complete, citable manuscript posted before or during formal peer review, and bioRxiv assigns it a Crossref DOI (prefix 10.1101) as soon as screening is passed. Clinical trial reports and most epidemiology studies must instead go to bioRxiv&#8217;s sister server, medRxiv \u2014 submitting one of these to bioRxiv is itself a common rejection reason, covered in section four below.<\/p>\n<ul id=\"toc\">\n<li><a href=\"#requirements\">1. What are bioRxiv&#8217;s submission requirements?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#author-area\">2. Setting up your bioRxiv author area<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#templates\">3. Choosing a manuscript template<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#screening\">4. What happens after you submit (timeline and screening)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#rejections\">5. Common rejection reasons and how to avoid them<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#faq\">6. Frequently asked questions<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#implications\">7. Implications for research offices<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"requirements\">1. What are bioRxiv&#8217;s submission requirements?<\/h2>\n<p>bioRxiv does not enforce a house style, but it does enforce a fixed submission format and a content-eligibility test. The manuscript must be unpublished at the time of deposit, all co-authors must have consented to posting, and the work must fall within a relevant life-sciences subject category.<\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<th>Submission route<\/th>\n<th>What you upload<\/th>\n<th>Conversion<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Single PDF<\/td>\n<td>Full text, figures and tables combined<\/td>\n<td>None needed \u2014 this is the simplest route<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Word + separate figures<\/td>\n<td>Word file for text\/tables; figures as JPEG, TIFF, EPS or PowerPoint<\/td>\n<td>bioRxiv&#8217;s automated engine builds the PDF<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>LaTeX<\/td>\n<td>Manuscript converted to PDF before upload (LaTeX source may accompany it as Supplemental Material)<\/td>\n<td>Author-side conversion required<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>Large primary datasets belong in a community database such as GenBank or the Protein Data Bank rather than as Supplemental Material, in line with the Fort Lauderdale data-sharing guidelines that bioRxiv references directly in its submission guide.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"author-area\">2. Setting up your bioRxiv author area<\/h2>\n<p>Every submission starts with a free account on the bioRxiv Manuscript Processing System at <em>submit.biorxiv.org<\/em>. The <strong>bioRxiv author area<\/strong> is where you register, start a new submission, continue a saved draft, proof a converted manuscript, and later submit revisions.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Register with an institutional or personal email address \u2014 no institutional affiliation is required to create an account.<\/li>\n<li>Enter the author area and select &#8220;Submit a New Manuscript.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Upload files, enter co-author details for every listed author, and add funder names and grant numbers.<\/li>\n<li>Select an article category: New Results, Confirmatory Results, or Contradictory Results.<\/li>\n<li>Choose a distribution licence \u2014 CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND, CC0, or no reuse.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Copyright remains with the author throughout. Once a version is posted, it cannot be deleted, but authors can submit a revision at any time before journal acceptance via the same author-area screen.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"templates\">3. Choosing a manuscript template<\/h2>\n<p>A <strong>bioRxiv template<\/strong> is optional, not mandatory \u2014 the platform explicitly states it does not require a particular article format or style, and many authors simply reuse the formatting of their target journal. Two community-maintained options cover most first-time authors.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Word template:<\/strong> a community-built .docx template on GitHub styled after published bioRxiv papers, useful if you want a clean starting structure without building one from scratch.<\/li>\n<li><strong>bioRxiv LaTeX template:<\/strong> several Overleaf templates are built specifically for bioRxiv preprints and can often be re-purposed for the eventual journal submission, saving reformatting time later in the pipeline.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Whichever route you choose, convert LaTeX output to PDF before upload \u2014 bioRxiv&#8217;s system does not compile .tex source directly.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"screening\">4. What happens after you submit (timeline and screening)<\/h2>\n<p>Submitted manuscripts go through two screening stages before posting. In-house staff first check completeness and confirm the article type is eligible; volunteer Principal Investigators known as bioRxiv Affiliates then assess whether the work constitutes genuine biological research and whether it poses any public-harm or biosecurity risk.<\/p>\n<p>This combined process is the answer to a frequent search \u2014 <strong>bioRxiv submission time<\/strong> \u2014 and typically completes within <strong>24-48 hours<\/strong> of upload. Once approved, the PDF posts immediately; conversion to full-text HTML and XML can take a further 1-2 days, so the machine-readable version usually lags the PDF by up to 48 hours.<\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<th>Stage<\/th>\n<th>Typical duration<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Registration and upload<\/td>\n<td>Immediate<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>In-house completeness\/eligibility check<\/td>\n<td>Same day to 24 hours<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Affiliate biosecurity\/scope review<\/td>\n<td>Within 24-48 hours total<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>PDF posting after approval<\/td>\n<td>Immediate<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Full-text HTML\/XML conversion<\/td>\n<td>Up to 48 additional hours<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<h2 id=\"rejections\">5. Common rejection reasons and how to avoid them<\/h2>\n<p>bioRxiv&#8217;s own screening documentation and content-scope rules point to a consistent set of avoidable rejections for first-time authors.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Wrong content type:<\/strong> case reports, narrative reviews, editorials, letters, opinion pieces, hypotheses without new data, and laboratory protocols without accompanying results are all excluded from bioRxiv&#8217;s scope.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Wrong server:<\/strong> clinical trial results and most epidemiology studies must go to medRxiv, not bioRxiv \u2014 this single misrouting error is one of the most common first-submission mistakes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Already published:<\/strong> a manuscript that has already been accepted by a journal cannot be deposited as a new bioRxiv submission.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Missing author consent:<\/strong> every listed co-author must have agreed to posting before submission; disputes here stall or block screening.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Biosecurity or dual-use concerns:<\/strong> Affiliates specifically screen for material that could pose a health or biosecurity risk, which can delay or prevent posting even for otherwise sound science.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Non-scientific or promotional content:<\/strong> bioRxiv is explicitly not a channel for news, product advertisements, or policy statements.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"faq\">6. Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n<h3 id=\"faq-anyone\">Can anyone submit to bioRxiv?<\/h3>\n<p>Yes \u2014 any author whose manuscript concerns a <strong>relevant scientific field<\/strong>, is unpublished, and has the consent of all co-authors can deposit it after free registration. No institutional affiliation is required, and there is <strong>no submission fee<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"faq-when\">When should you submit to bioRxiv?<\/h3>\n<p>A manuscript can be submitted at <strong>any point before journal publication<\/strong>. Once a journal has formally published the paper, it can no longer be newly deposited as a bioRxiv preprint, though the platform still allows revisions of an existing preprint right up to journal acceptance.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"faq-time\">How long does a bioRxiv submission take?<\/h3>\n<p>Screening typically completes within <strong>24-48 hours<\/strong> of upload, after which the PDF posts immediately. The <strong>full-text HTML and XML version<\/strong> follows separately and can take up to 48 further hours to appear.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"faq-cost\">How much does it cost to submit to bioRxiv?<\/h3>\n<p>There is <strong>no charge<\/strong> for registration or for depositing an article. bioRxiv funds screening and hosting as a non-profit service operated by openRxiv rather than through author-facing fees.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"implications\">7. Implications for research offices and institutions<\/h2>\n<p>Research-administration teams increasingly track preprints as part of grant-compliance and output reporting, not just publication records. The U.S. National Institutes of Health has, since Notice NOT-OD-17-050, explicitly permitted investigators to cite preprints \u2014 including bioRxiv postings \u2014 in grant applications and progress reports, and cOAlition S&#8217;s Plan S framework recognises preprints as a valid interim compliance route ahead of a peer-reviewed version.<\/p>\n<p>Because a bioRxiv DOI is assigned at posting and persists across revisions, institutions can use it as a stable identifier to link the preprint, the eventual journal version, and contributor metadata. Where a project already uses the <a href=\"\/credit\/roles\/\">CRediT contributor role taxonomy<\/a> to record who did what \u2014 CASRAI originated CRediT in 2014, and the taxonomy is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI\/NISO Z39.104-2022 \u2014 carrying those role assignments into the preprint stage keeps <a href=\"\/authorship\/\">authorship<\/a> records consistent from first deposit through final publication.<\/p>\n<p>bioRxiv&#8217;s direct-transfer (B2J) programme, which now spans more than 190 partner journals and peer-review services, also removes a second manual re-entry step for research-office staff supporting authors through submission \u2014 files and metadata move directly from the bioRxiv author area to the receiving journal without being re-uploaded.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"conclusion\">Building preprinting into standard practice<\/h2>\n<p>For first-time authors, the practical barrier to bioRxiv is low: no fee, no mandatory template, and a screening turnaround measured in hours rather than weeks. The remaining friction is almost entirely about content fit \u2014 choosing the right server, the right article category, and confirming every co-author has consented before upload.<\/p>\n<p>Institutions that build preprint deposit into standard research-administration workflows \u2014 alongside DOI tracking, contributor-role records, and funder-mandate checks \u2014 turn a one-off submission task into a repeatable, auditable step in the research lifecycle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A first-time-author walkthrough of bioRxiv submission: format, template, author area setup and screening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_casrai_contributor_statement":"","_casrai_contributors_json":"","_article_doi":"","_article_license":[],"_article_funding":[],"_casrai_article_id":"","_casrai_registry_status":"","_casrai_registry_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1621],"tags":[2379,2378,2374,2375,2376,2377,1595],"credit_role":[],"dictionary_domain":[],"class_list":["post-2983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guides-explainers","tag-biorxiv-author-area","tag-biorxiv-latex-template","tag-biorxiv-submission-guidelines","tag-biorxiv-submission-requirements","tag-biorxiv-submission-time","tag-biorxiv-template","tag-preprint-servers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2983"},{"taxonomy":"credit_role","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/credit_role?post=2983"},{"taxonomy":"dictionary_domain","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casrai.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dictionary_domain?post=2983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}