Accepted Formats
Publish supported file types, format versions, upload limits, and known restrictions.
Repository Submission File Standards & Technical Requirements Policy
Submit files people can use. Preserve files future systems can still understand.
The JR Institute intends to establish clear, accessible, secure, and preservation-ready technical standards for manuscripts, figures, datasets, software, supplementary materials, and source files.
Developing Framework
This page presents a planned public standard. Final accepted formats, upload limits, validators, accessibility checks, malware screening, and exception procedures should be approved before repository launch.
Policy Purpose
A technically valid upload is not always readable, accessible, secure, or preservable.
Repository files should open reliably, preserve meaningful text and structure, support assistive technology, and retain enough source information for later migration or correction.
Technical requirements should reduce avoidable failure without creating unnecessary barriers for authors.
Core Principles
Readable, accessible, validated, secure, documented, and preservation-ready.
Accessible Documents
Require searchable text, meaningful headings, alternative text, and logical reading order.
Source Preservation
Retain source files, figures, code, tables, and build instructions where practical.
File Validation
Check files for corruption, missing components, invalid structure, and unreadable content.
Security Screening
Scan uploads for malware, dangerous embedded content, and unauthorized executable behavior.
Replace Without Erasing
Correct defective files through visible replacement while preserving version and submission history.
Scope
This policy is intended to apply to manuscripts, PDFs, source documents, figures, images, audio, video, datasets, software, notebooks, models, archives, supplementary materials, and technical documentation submitted to the future JR Research Archive.
Accepted and Preferred File Formats
The repository should publish a maintained list of accepted, preferred, conditionally accepted, and unsupported file formats.
Preferred formats should be well documented, widely implemented, suitable for preservation, and reasonably independent of one proprietary application or vendor.
Manuscript and PDF Standards
Public documents should contain searchable text, selectable characters, embedded or safely referenced fonts, meaningful heading structure, readable page order, and complete metadata.
- Title and author information matching repository metadata
- Readable text without image-only pages unless necessary
- Bookmarks or navigation for long documents where practical
- Alternative text or descriptions for meaningful figures
- Tables that remain understandable to assistive technology
- No passwords, encryption, or restrictions that prevent preservation
A visually polished PDF may still fail if its text cannot be searched, copied, indexed, read by assistive technology, or migrated reliably.
Figures, Images, Audio, and Video
Figures and media should be supplied at sufficient quality for scholarly interpretation without unnecessary file size.
Captions, labels, units, legends, color meaning, accessibility descriptions, editing history, and rights information should be provided where relevant.
Supplementary Materials and Related Objects
Supplementary files should be individually identified, described, versioned, and linked to the primary record.
Large datasets, software repositories, models, and complex media may be deposited in an approved external repository and connected through a stable identifier.
Source Files, Build Instructions, and Reproducibility
Authors should provide source files when they materially improve preservation, accessibility, correction, rendering, or reproducibility.
Source packages may include document source, bibliography files, figure originals, code, notebooks, dependency records, configuration, and build instructions.
File Naming, Packaging, and Directory Structure
File names should be stable, descriptive, portable across operating systems, and free of misleading extensions or unnecessary sensitive information.
Multi-file packages should include a clear directory structure, a manifest, a readme, version information, and instructions needed to understand the contents.
Validation, Malware Screening, and Technical Review
Uploads may be scanned for corruption, malformed structure, malware, embedded executables, active content, deceptive file types, missing dependencies, and preservation risk.
Technical rejection should identify the failed requirement and provide a practical correction path whenever safe and possible.
File-Size Limits, Complex Deposits, and Exceptions
Upload limits should reflect service capacity, preservation cost, user accessibility, security, and the availability of better specialized repositories.
Exceptions may be approved for unusually valuable, complex, irreplaceable, or field-specific research materials when a preservation and access plan is documented.
Defective Files, Replacement, and Technical Corrections
A file may be replaced when it is corrupted, incomplete, inaccessible, incorrectly rendered, unsafe, or technically inconsistent with the intended record.
Material replacements should preserve the earlier file where appropriate, identify the date and reason, and distinguish technical correction from substantive scholarly revision.
Framework date: July 2026
Technical Submission Lifecycle
Prepare, validate, scan, deposit, preserve, and correct.
- Prepare. Use accepted formats, complete metadata, accessible structure, and descriptive file names.
- Validate. Test readability, structure, links, source completeness, and expected rendering.
- Scan. Review for malware, dangerous active content, corruption, and deceptive file behavior.
- Deposit and preserve. Create checksums, retain source materials, and link related objects and versions.
- Correct visibly. Replace defective files without erasing the record of what changed and why.
Submission File Questions
Ask about accepted formats, accessibility, source packages, file limits, validation, or replacement.
Inquiries may concern manuscripts, PDFs, figures, datasets, software, media, supplementary files, preservation formats, upload errors, or complex deposit exceptions.
Submit a Technical Requirements Inquiry
Identify the record type, proposed formats, approximate size, software dependencies, accessibility needs, and the issue requiring review.
Contact the Institute