Check Submission Compliance
Automatically verify that submissions meet formatting and content requirements
PaperFox can automatically check all submissions in a track against your formatting and content requirements — page limits, margins, font size, anonymization, and more. All checks run programmatically on the PDF files, with no data sent to external services.
How It Works
- Configure requirements — Pick from predefined rule types (Page Limit, Font Size, etc.) and set parameters
- Run the check — PaperFox downloads each submission's PDF and verifies every rule
- Review results — See pass/fail/warn status per submission, with detailed evidence
- Notify authors — Select non-compliant submissions and send notification emails
Supported Check Types
All checks are programmatic — they analyze the PDF structure and text directly.
| Type | What It Checks | Parameters |
|---|---|---|
| Page Limit | Number of pages | Max pages, optional "excluding references" |
| Page Size | US Letter or A4 | Size selection |
| Margins | Minimum margin width | Inches (with 0.15" tolerance) |
| Font Size | Dominant body font size | Point size (with 1pt tolerance) |
| Column Layout | Single or two-column | Column count |
| Line Spacing | Single or double spacing | Spacing type |
| File Size | PDF file size | Max MB |
| Language | Primary language of text | Language selection |
| Anonymization | Author identifying info in text | Automatic (uses submission author data) |
Configuring Requirements
- Go to Conferences in the sidebar, then click on your conference
- Navigate to your track and click "Compliance"
- Click "Add Rule" and select a type from the dropdown
- Set the parameters (e.g., max 8 pages) and severity (MUST or SHOULD)
- Click "Save Guidelines"
Extract Requirements with AI
Instead of adding rules manually, you can upload a PDF template or paste guideline text and let AI extract the requirements for you. The extracted rules are mapped to the predefined types above with pre-filled parameters. Review and adjust them before saving.
Severity Levels
| Severity | On Violation |
|---|---|
| MUST | Marked as Fail |
| SHOULD | Marked as Warn |
Page Limit — Excluding References
Enable the "Excluding references" checkbox to count only content pages before the References section. PaperFox detects the References heading in the PDF and counts pages up to that point.
References detection
If PaperFox cannot find a "References" heading in the PDF, it falls back to counting all pages and notes this in the evidence.
Anonymization Check
The anonymization check verifies that submissions do not contain author-identifying information — important for double-blind review.
It searches the PDF text for:
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Full author name (first + last) | Entire document |
| Email address | Entire document |
No external services
The anonymization check uses keyword matching against the submission's author data. No text is sent to any external AI service.
Running a Compliance Check
Once requirements are saved, click "Run Check" to check all submissions against your current rules. Every run checks all submissions from scratch, so you always get up-to-date results — even if you just changed a rule (e.g., updated the page limit).
The check runs in the background. A progress bar shows how many submissions have been processed. When complete, results appear below.
Choosing Which PDF to Check (Multi-Phase Tracks)
If your track has more than one phase (e.g., Submission and Revision, or a Camera-Ready phase), a phase dropdown appears next to the "Run Check" button. It lets you pick which PDF version to check for each submission.
| Option | What Gets Checked |
|---|---|
| Latest version (any phase) (default) | The most recent PDF for each submission, regardless of phase — same behavior as a single-phase track |
| A specific phase (e.g., Revision) | The latest PDF the author uploaded in that phase |
Each option shows a count in parentheses — the number of submissions that have a version in that phase. Switching the dropdown updates the count above so you know how many papers will be checked before you click "Run Check".
Submissions outside the selected phase are skipped
Only submissions that have a version in the chosen phase are included. For example, if you scope a check to Camera-Ready but only 20 of 50 papers have been moved to that phase, the run checks those 20 — the other 30 are not in the candidate set and don't appear in results.
Single-phase tracks don't show the dropdown — there's only one PDF per submission, so the choice doesn't apply.
Reviewing Results
Results are shown in a table with pass/fail/warn status for each submission. If a check fails partway through, any partial results collected before the failure are still displayed. You can:
- Filter by status (Pass, Warn, Fail)
- Click the eye icon on any row to see detailed findings with evidence for each rule
- Select non-compliant submissions and click "Notify Authors" to send email notifications
Each finding includes:
- Status: Pass, Fail, or Warn
- Message: What was checked and the result
- Evidence: Specific measurements or text found (e.g., "Page count: 10, limit: 8")