Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission (Including Supplemental Files)
Submit as a PDF
When submitting a page-based manuscript of your dissertation or thesis, it must be submitted to
ProQuest Dissertation Publishing in Adobe PDF format. When preparing your PDF, be sure to do the
following:
o Embed all fonts (further information is provided below related to embedding fonts)
o Make sure there is no password protection on the PDF
o Ensure that security settings allow printing
o Format as individual, single pages
Note: As part of our normal process, ProQuest inserts an extra page in the front of every published
manuscript.
Verify Proper Formatting
ProQuest Dissertation Publishing makes no changes to the formatting or content of submitted
manuscripts. Therefore, the burden of how the manuscript looks when it is accessed or printed is entirely
the responsibility of the author. ProQuest strongly recommends that individual authors take responsibility
for reformatting the document into Adobe PDF, for checking the reformatted document for accuracy, and
for submitting the PDF document to the graduate school or library for publication.
Digital Format Specifications
File format manuscript
Adobe PDF required. NO compression; NO password protection; NO digital
Signature. You are responsible for the appearance of your manuscript in PDF.
It will appear and may be downloaded exactly as you submit it.
Multimedia files and formats
Digital preservation best practices typically recommend including multimedia
content as supplemental files, rather than embedding multimedia in PDFs.
ProQuest will accept multimedia content of all file types. File types listed below
will be migrated by ProQuest. File types other than those listed below are not
guaranteed to be migrated.
Images
GIF (.gif); JPEG (.jpeg); TIFF (.tif)
Video
Apple Quick Time (.mov); Microsoft Audio Video Interleaved (.avi); MPEG
(.mgp)
Audio
AIF (.aif); CD-DA; CD-ROM/XA; MIDI (.midi); MPEG-2; SND (.snd); WAV
(.wav)
Margins
Left: 1”; Right: 1"; Top and Bottom: 1"
Applies to all material except page numbers, including figures, headers/footers,
footnotes/endnotes, and full-page images. Page numbers: at least ¾" from
edge of page.
Fonts
Embedded fonts REQUIRED. Post Script Type 1 fonts required. Any legible
font except script, italic, or ornamental fonts equivalent in scale to 10pt. Arial or
12pt. Times New Roman accepted. Italicized font may be used for non-English
words and quotations. Applies to all text including captions, footnotes/endnotes,
citations, etc.
Line spacing
Double-space: abstract, dedication, acknowledgements, table of contents, and
body of the manuscript; except for quotations as paragraphs, captions, items in
tables, lists, graphs, charts. Single-space: footnotes/endnotes, bibliographic
entries, lists in appendices.
Color
Native digital manuscripts will appear in color when viewed electronically.
Microfilm and print reproductions will NOT preserve color; colors will appear in
shades of gray and may compromise legibility of figures, illustrations,
photographs, and graphics. Data and information that is color-coded or based
on color shading may not be interpretable. For best results, have color
photographs reprinted in black and white by a professional lab.
Reproduction
PDF and Print reproductions will include all color material. Microfilm
reproductions will NOT preserve color; colors will appear in shades of gray.
Abstracts
We no longer have a word limit on your abstract, as this constrains your ability to describe your
research in
a section that is accessible to search engines, and therefore would constrain potential exposure of your
work. The abstract as you submit it will NOT be altered in your published manuscript. Please include an
additional version of your abstract in English, even if the primary language of your dissertation or thesis is
NOT English. For additional information regarding formatting of abstracts, please see the FAQ here:
https://about.proquest.com/go/etdadmin-missing-copypasteabs.
Manuscript Specifications
Your dissertation or thesis will be produced in digital, print and microform or microfiche format. Your library
may have a standing order for reduced (6" x 9") size bound copies. Achieving a legible copy of acceptable
quality in all of these formats and sizes requires a conservative approach to paper size and quality, fonts,
font sizes, spacing, images and graphics. Your institution may provide you with specifications for some or
all of these details, in addition to specifications for required sections, organization, pagination, and others.
In cases of variation, your institution's specifications supersede ours. Please adhere to either/both your
institutional specifications and those that follow here to ensure the highest quality reproduction of your
work.
MAKE SURE all your fonts are embedded. See the end of this guide for instructions on embedding fonts.
Manuscripts without embedded fonts can cause ALL punctuation and formatting to disappear when the
document is printed from the digital file, and causes delays in our publishing process.
Supplementary Materials
If supplementary materials—such as audio, video, and spreadsheets—are part of your dissertation or
thesis, you can submit them as supplementary files during the online submission process. Upload them
as part of the submission process, and provide a description of each supplementary file or files in the
abstract of your graduate work.
o Do not embed media files in your PDF.
o Upload media files as supplementary files. During online submission, you will be asked to upload
any supplementary files.
o Describe files in your abstract. Add a description of each supplementary file in your abstract.
Supporting Documentation for Supplementary Materials
Including supplementary materials with your submission may require additional paper documentation
before we can complete the publishing process. For further information see Sample Permission Letter for
Use of Previously Copyrighted Material.
•
Reprint Permission Letters: If you are going to include multimedia material covered
under
someone else's copyright—an audio or video clip, a digital photograph, etc.—you must provide us
with written permission to include it.
•
Third Party Software Licenses (if needed): If you are including third party software with your
submission, you must provide written permission to distribute it. Note that this is different than
including a file generated by a particular program. For example, including a Microsoft Excel file
(.xls) does not require including the software license.
Additional paper documentation, when required, can be mailed to us at:
Dissertations Acquisitions
ProQuest
789 E. Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346
Embedding Fonts
This guidance assumes you are writing your manuscript in MS Word on a PC. If you are using a Mac,
similar guidance can be found at https://about.proquest.com/go/etdadmin-embedfonts .
Create your manuscript using a TrueType font—NOT a scalable font. See below for a list of
recommended TrueType fonts and point sizes.
•
*Arial 10pt
•
Century 11pt
•
*Courier New 10pt
•
Garamond 12pt
•
*Georgia 11pt
•
Lucida Bright 10pt
•
Microsoft Sans Serif 10pt
•
Tahoma 10pt
•
*Times New Roman 12pt
•
*Trebuchet MS 10pt
•
*Verdana 10pt
*Web font. Designed for easy screen readability. Since many readers are likely to view and/or use your dissertation or thesis
onscreen, you may wish to improve the readability of your text by using one of these fonts.
Once you have chosen a True Type font you must embed it:
1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Save tab.
2. Select the Embed TrueType fonts check box.
3. Save the document.
Alternatively, if you have Adobe Acrobat Professional available to you, follow the instructions provided by
the Graduate Thesis Office at Iowa State University:
1. Open your document in Microsoft Word.
2. Click on the Adobe PDF tab at top. Select "Change Conversion Settings."
3. Click on Advanced Settings.
4. Click on the Fonts folder on the left side of the new window. In the lower box on the right, delete
any fonts that appear in the "Never Embed" box. Then click "OK."
5. If prompted to save these new settings, save them as "Embed all fonts."
6. Now the Change Conversion Settings window should show "embed all fonts" in the Conversion
Settings drop down list and it should be selected. Click "OK" again.
7. Click on the Adobe PDF link at the top again. This time select Convert to Adobe PDF. Depending
on the size of your document and the speed of your computer, this process can take 1-15
minutes.
8. After your document is converted, select the "File" tab at the top of the page. Then select
"Document Properties."
9. Click on the "Fonts" tab. Carefully check all of your fonts. They should all show "(Embedded
Subset)" after the font name.
10. If you see "(Embedded Subset)" after all fonts, you have succeeded.
