Manuscript (publishing)

A manuscript is the work that an author submits to a publisher, editor, or producer for publication. Especially in academic publishing, manuscript can also refer to an accepted document, reviewed but not yet in a final format, distributed in advance as a preprint.

This use of the term manuscript (from Latin for "hand written") originally dates from a time when only final published documents were professionally typeset and printed, but preliminary drafts were written by hand. Once typewriters became widespread, many manuscripts were typewritten. Today manuscripts are usually prepared using computers with digital typesetting or word processing software.