Skip to content
PubCrafts
Sign in
Pages

Journal typesetting

Journal typesetting software, and what it actually has to do

Typesetting a journal article is the work of turning a manuscript into the thing a reader sees: a page with the right typeface at the right size, figures where their captions say they are, tables that fit their columns, equations set rather than pasted in as pictures, and a reference list in the journal’s own style.

For most journals that work is sent out and comes back days or weeks later, with queries. Software can do it in the time it takes to read the article - but only if it does all of the job, and most of the difficulty is in the parts nobody lists.

Choosing one

What to look for

If you are comparing tools, these are the questions that separate one that saves a day from one that costs you one.

Does it read the manuscript, or ask you to rebuild it?
A tool that gives you an empty template and a cursor has moved the work, not removed it. The manuscript already contains its own structure - headings, authors, affiliations, figure captions, a reference list - and reading that out is the part worth automating.
Is the design your journal’s, or the tool’s?
A galley that looks like software output is a galley your readers will notice. Your page size, margins, typeface, heading scale, running heads, licence line and logos are a specification, and a tool should take it rather than offer you a choice of three themes.
What happens to tables and equations?
These are where converters fail quietly. A merged cell dropped or an equation turned into a low-resolution image is a mistake that reaches print and that nobody catches in a proof read on screen.
Does it produce the files your indexes want?
A PDF alone is not publishing any more. Abstracting and indexing services, and increasingly funders, want structured full text and metadata in a standard form. A tool that stops at the PDF leaves you the hardest file to make by hand.
Can a person override it?
Automated structure is a first draft of the truth. If an editor cannot correct what the software decided - and see the correction in the galley - then every unusual article becomes an exception you cannot publish.
Who can see your manuscripts?
Unpublished research under embargo is confidential. If several publishers share an installation, ask how their work is kept apart, and ask what is recorded when somebody opens a file.

The answers

How this one answers them

  • It reads what the author wrote

    Upload the accepted file as it arrived. Sections, authors, affiliations, figures, tables, equations and references are identified and handed to an editor as a document to check rather than a form to fill in.

  • Each journal is set to its own specification

    Page size, typeface, heading sizes, columns, running heads, the licence sentence and your logos belong to the journal, not to the software. Two journals on one account print nothing alike unless you want them to.

  • Tables and equations are carried, not flattened

    A table keeps its header rows and its merged cells. Mathematics stays mathematics - set as type in the galley and carried into the XML, so it is searchable and readable rather than a picture of itself.

  • The structured files come out with the PDF

    The same approved article produces the galley, the online version, the standards-compliant XML and the deposit metadata. One approval, every file, all saying the same thing.

  • The editor has the last word

    Everything the software decided can be changed - a heading level, an author’s affiliation, a figure’s placement, a reference’s details - and the galley is re-set from the correction.

  • Publishers are kept apart

    Each publisher’s journals and manuscripts are isolated from every other’s, two-factor sign-in can be required for your team, and every action is recorded.

In practice

What an afternoon looks like

An editor with six accepted papers and an issue to close.

  1. Upload all six. Each one comes back with its structure read out and anything doubtful flagged.

  2. Work through them in the editor: fix a heading the author made bold instead of a heading, split an affiliation that two authors share, check the figure captions against the figures.

  3. Approve each one. Anything the standard requires and the manuscript did not supply is listed before it will let you through, so the gaps are found now rather than by an index three weeks later.

  4. Send the authors their proof links and carry on with something else. Their comments arrive against the sentences they refer to.

  5. Make the last corrections, re-set the galleys, and download the issue: six PDFs, six online versions, the XML, and the deposit.

Going deeper

Read more on this

  1. What is typesetting? What typesetting involves, what a typesetter decides, why it is slow when done by hand, and what is left for an editor to judge. Read this
  2. Galley proofs What a galley proof is for, why it should be the typeset article, how to collect corrections that land, and a checklist before it goes out. Read this
  3. Two-column layout Why research journals set two columns, what breaks the layout, how to place wide tables and equations, and when one column is the better choice. Read this

Read next

Next step

Put one accepted manuscript through it.

That is the whole evaluation. Tell us about your journal and send one accepted paper with it; we set the account up and you take that paper from upload to galley. The galley answers the question; nothing before it has to.

Talk to us about your journal Sign in