Frontiers in Microbiology Formatting Requirements: Complete Author Guide

Frontiers asks for a single-paragraph abstract that makes the significance and conceptual advance accessible to a broad readership. The article-type and journal requirements control any type-specific structure or limit.

• Structure: Unstructured single paragraph

• Citations: Not allowed in the abstract

• Keywords: Select 5 to 8 terms that mix broad and specific descriptions of the article's subject

• Abbreviations: Avoid if possible; define at first use if necessary

Do not import an abstract limit from another Frontiers journal or an older manuscript. Check the live article-type page for the specialty section available in the submission portal.

Frontiers has specific formatting requirements for figures that differ from some other publishers.

Figure specifications:

Frontiers-specific figure rules:

• Upload figures separately in TIFF or JPEG format; Frontiers embeds them at the end of the submitted manuscript

• Put figure captions at the end of the manuscript

• Multi-panel figures use uppercase letters: (A), (B), (C) (not lowercase like some other publishers)

• Label each graph axis clearly, including units

Tables should be created in Word or LaTeX table environments, not submitted as images. Keep them editable and place them at the end of the manuscript. Put each table caption immediately before its table.

Frontiers uses the Harvard author-date citation system, which sets it apart from numbered-reference journals.

In-text citations: Parenthetical author-date format: (Smith, 2024) for one author, (Smith and Jones, 2024) for two, (Smith et al., 2024) for three or more. Multiple citations are separated by semicolons and ordered chronologically: (Smith, 2020; Jones, 2022; Brown et al., 2024).

Reference list format (alphabetical):

Smith, J. K., Jones, A. B., and Brown, C. D. (2024). Title of the article. *Front. Microbiol.* **15**, 1234567. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1234567

Key formatting specifics:

• Author names: Surname, initials (e.g., "Smith, J. K.")

• "and" before the last author (not "&")

• Year in parentheses after authors

• Article title in sentence case

• Journal titles may be abbreviated; the publisher's own Harvard examples use forms such as "Mol. Cell."

• Volume number in bold, followed by page range or article number

• DOI required for all references that have one

• For books: Author (Year). Title. City: Publisher.

Frontiers journals can use Harvard or Vancouver references. Select the Frontiers in Microbiology style in Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, or another reference manager rather than assuming every Frontiers journal uses the same system. The current guidance asks authors to list the first six authors followed by "et al." and include the DOI when available.

Frontiers provides a structured system for supplementary material.

Common supplementary content for Frontiers in Microbiology:

• Extended sequence data and phylogenetic trees

• Additional microscopy images

• Full datasets (metabolomics, transcriptomics)

• Detailed protocols and materials lists

• Videos of experimental procedures or dynamic processes

Supplementary material is uploaded through the Frontiers submission system. Files must be cited in the main text as "Supplementary Figure S1" or "Supplementary Table S1."

Frontiers deposits supplementary files in Figshare for permanent storage and assigns a DOI. Supplementary files are not typeset, so remove tracked changes, highlights, line numbers, article titles, author lists, affiliations, and correspondence details from those files.

For large datasets, use an appropriate public, community-supported repository and cite the persistent identifier or accession number. During submission, Frontiers asks data-availability questions and generates the statement that is added to the manuscript.

Supplementary Presentations: Frontiers allows Supplementary Presentations (PowerPoint files) as supplementary material. This is uncommon among publishers but can be useful for complex methodological overviews.

These are Frontiers-specific details that experienced authors know:

Interactive review process. Frontiers uses a unique collaborative review model. After reviewers submit their initial reports, the authors respond through a discussion forum on the Frontiers platform. This back-and-forth continues until consensus is reached. Reviewer identities are disclosed upon publication. The interactive format means your responses to reviewers are visible to both reviewers and the editor simultaneously.

Specialty section selection matters. Frontiers in Microbiology has multiple specialty sections. Your section choice determines which editor handles the paper and which reviewer pool is accessed. Choosing the wrong section can lead to mismatched reviewers. Check the live section scope descriptions before submitting.

Original Research structure is recommended, not a universal article-type order. Frontiers recommends Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion for Original Research, or field-appropriate equivalents. Reviews, Methods, Perspectives, and other article types have their own structures on the journal's article-type page.

Submission-generated statements. Frontiers collects ethics and data-availability information in the submission flow and generates statements for the manuscript. Have approvals, consent details, repository records, and identifiers ready even when the source file does not yet contain the generated wording.

Author contributions are published. Not just required but published as part of the article. Every author's specific contribution is visible to readers. Use CRediT-style descriptions.

Conflict of interest statement is published. Even "no conflict" declarations appear in the published article.

These checks catch failures that templates and automated reference tools do not resolve:

1. Wrong Frontiers reference variant. Frontiers journals use either Harvard or Vancouver. Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, and Paperpile can apply a plausible-looking Frontiers style that is wrong for this journal. Confirm author-date citations and an alphabetical reference list.

1. Incorrect word-count calculation. The limit includes main text, footnotes, and in-text citations, but excludes the abstract, section titles, captions, funding, acknowledgments, and bibliography. Microsoft Word's whole-document count does not reproduce this rule automatically.

1. Uppercase panel labels. Frontiers uses (A), (B), (C) for multi-panel figures, not (a), (b), (c). This inconsistency with other publishers catches authors who reuse figures from previous publications.

1. Treating the template as a compliance certificate. The template cannot verify the selected article type, word limit, specialty section, or required submission declarations. Check those separately against the live journal pages.

1. Source and PDF drift. LaTeX users need the TEX source, compiled PDF, and a separate BIB file when references are not embedded. Word users need the editable DOC/DOCX source and the PDF. Compare the compiled PDF with the source before upload.

In our pre-submission review work, we separate publisher-wide Frontiers checks from Frontiers in Microbiology article-type checks. In our audit of this workflow, we find that a manuscript can look polished in a Frontiers template while still failing the journal's live word-count, reference, figure, or file requirements. The specific failure patterns below use four component-level tests instead of treating template use as a pass. In practice the result is reproducible because each test names the file or manuscript component that must be checked.

1. The Frontiers in Microbiology word count is calculated from the wrong document total. Microsoft Word's status-bar count and many LaTeX word-count commands do not implement the publisher's exclusions. We recalculate the main text, footnotes, and in-text citations while excluding the abstract, section titles, figure and table captions, funding, acknowledgments, and bibliography. This often changes the apparent margin against the selected article type's limit. The test is reproducible: record both the whole-document count and the Frontiers-defined count, then state which sections were excluded.

2. The Frontiers in Microbiology reference list uses a generic Frontiers style. Frontiers journals can use Harvard or Vancouver, so selecting the first style named "Frontiers" in Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, or Paperpile is not enough. We check that in-text citations are author-date, the reference list is alphabetical, the first six authors precede "et al.," and available DOIs are present. We also compare one journal article, one dataset, and one website reference with the live publisher examples; a single correctly formatted journal article does not prove that the other source types are correct.

3. Frontiers in Microbiology figures pass visual review but fail the upload contract. A sharp figure pasted into the manuscript PDF can still be unusable as a production file. We inspect the separately uploaded figure for TIFF or JPEG format, RGB color mode, 300 dpi at final size, readable text of at least 8 pt, uppercase panel labels, and axis units. We then check that each caption is at the end of the manuscript and each table remains editable in the Word or LaTeX source. This catches the common mismatch where the PDF looks correct but the source table is an image.

4. The Frontiers in Microbiology PDF and editable source are not the same version. A final abstract edit, reordered figure, or corrected reference can exist in the PDF without reaching the DOCX, TEX, or BIB file. We compare the abstract ending, figure order, table count, and final reference between the PDF and source package. For LaTeX, we also compile from the exact TEX and BIB files intended for upload. This makes the check testable and prevents a clean PDF from masking stale submission files.

These checks are formatting-specific. Scientific fit, contribution, and specialty-section choice still need a separate editorial-readiness review. A Frontiers in Microbiology submission readiness check evaluates those issues without confusing them with file compliance.

• Your count came from the whole manuscript rather than the Frontiers inclusion and exclusion rule

• Your reference manager style is named only "Frontiers" and you have not confirmed Harvard formatting for this journal

• Figures exist only inside the PDF, or tables have been converted to images

• The PDF was generated before the latest DOCX, TEX, or BIB edit

• Your selected article type or specialty section is not available in the current submission portal

For the full journal profile and related cluster pages, see the Frontiers in Microbiology journal profile.

For a manuscript-specific signal before you submit, run a Frontiers In Microbiology submission readiness check.

Or see example reports before you finalize.