Sir

John P. Moore, in Correspondence, laments the increased burden placed on scientists by the many journals that use an electronic submission system (“Online submission makes authors do all the work” Nature 433, 800; 200510.1038/433800d). It is true that the online system requires manuscripts to be prepared to the journals' specifications. For some journals it goes beyond spacing or file formats to seemingly minor details such as the format and font of the citations in text, footnotes and tables, and even the number of pixels for the figures. It's a lot of effort for first-time users, unless they are lucky enough to find someone experienced to help them. I can also imagine the problem it poses for scientists without access to all the technology.

Nonetheless, I feel strongly that the advantages of this system far outweigh the deficiencies. I can remember, twenty years ago, submitting copies of typed manuscripts by airmail from Taiwan to Europe or North America, which routinely cost half a day's pay. I usually had to wait for a month or two to receive an acknowledgement. If I had heard nothing after three months, I would send a letter of inquiry and wait another month or so to hear if it had been received. On more than one occasion manuscripts were lost in the post and had to be sent again. Queries (in either direction) and revised manuscripts were no less vulnerable to such mishaps. Compared with this, receiving an immediate acknowledgement and being able to track progress and submit a revised manuscript online is pure heaven.

Having said that, I feel improvements can still be made. Journals could help by allowing the flexible use of the most widely used and least expensive file formats for submission. Letting authors use an edit-friendly format, rather than having to do all the formatting themselves, would increase their motivation to submit papers. Given the ever-rising cost of journals, this would be only reasonable.