Preprints are on the rise, and they're gaining in popularity on Overleaf! Here's how it works...

Did you know that you can easily upload your document to multiple preprint servers and repositories, directly from your document in Overleaf? No? Find out how below...

The (continued) rise of the preprint

The use of preprint servers is continuing to grow, with new initiatives such as the bioRxiv and PeerJ Preprints building on the success of the arXiv, which has been at the heart of academic research in maths and physics since 1989:

Funders Wellcome, NIH, CIHR, ERC, MRC and others announce support for life sciences preprint server https://t.co/CTL7C2K55q pic.twitter.com/JVCmvbzXlh

— Science of science (@PRISMscience) February 14, 2017

There has also been a recent shift in funder policy, with open access and the use of preprint servers now being encouraged by funding bodies across science, such as today's (March 24th) announcement by the NIH which encourages investigators to use preprints for disseminating their research:

This is huge! "The NIH encourages investigators to use [preprints]"; they "can be cited anywhere other research products are cited" #ASAPbio https://t.co/6XJRxvehg3

— Jessica Polka (@jessicapolka) March 24, 2017

Overleaf – originally created by two mathematicians who used the arXiv to share their own research – has supported preprint submissions right from our first integration: almost four years ago to the day in March 2013, Overleaf (then called WriteLaTeX) launched a direct submission link with figshare. This allowed authors to instantly make their work more discoverable and more citable, as figshare provides DOIs to all published items, whether they are figures, datasets, or manuscripts...such as those written on Overleaf!

Since then, we've continued to expand our range of preprint server integrations, linking to the arXiv, bioRxiv, and PeerJ Preprints, all of which have proven popular with their authors, and also more recently to a new set of preprint servers being managed by the Center for Open Science and hosted on their Open Science Framework. Integrations with these new preprint servers, the engRxiv and SocArXiv were also an instant hit with Overleaf users, as we saw weekly submissions right from the start.

3D Scan Data for Selected Artifacts from Blackwater Draw National Historic Landmark, https://t.co/fNhgFst10O via @OSFramework @overleaf

— Selden3D (@Selden3DX) November 4, 2016

How to upload to preprint servers from Overleaf

It’s very easy! Simply click the Journals and Services button in the menu bar and go to the Online Repositories section:

Find the preprint server that fits with your document, and click the submission link for that repository. This will provide instructions on the next steps. That's pretty much all there is to it!

For some repositories (like Figshare) you can link your Overleaf and Figshare accounts and push and pull information between the two systems. For others, it will provide you with instructions, access to download the necessary documents and a link to the repository submission system.

If you prefer to upload your document to the Overleaf Gallery, you can find that option at the top of the Journal and Services screen. This will allow you to share your document and/or add it as a template on Overleaf for others to use.

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Share your story if you've submitted a preprint using Overleaf - we'd love to hear it! If you have any ideas for other repositories or servers we should link to, please let us know and we'll see what we can do :)