Preflight a Thesis Format Before the Submission Portal Does — Free
Paste your formatting notes and see which of the required elements your document still lacks — before a portal rejects the upload at 23:40 on deadline night.
The proof surface
Portals reject on structure, not on argument. This preflight surfaces the structural items early enough to fix them calmly instead of at midnight.
Why the flat version breaks
Reading the handbook once
Format rules sit in three places — handbook, template and portal help page — and the three disagree about front-matter pagination.
Checking after the final edit
Any margin change reflows the table of contents, so a check made before the last edit is already stale when the portal reads it.
Assuming the template is compliant
Institutional templates routinely ship with the wrong margin on landscape pages, which is the rejection most students cannot explain.
How to work the format preflight packet
One element per line, in your own words — 'declaration missing' is a usable line, a paragraph is not.
The date turns a vague plan into a count of days beside the open items.
Open items are marked with the exclamation box; present ones carry the stamped tick, and the index line counts both.
After the fixes, regenerate contents and pagination, then run the preflight again on the exported file.
What the preflight replaces
| Item | Without the packet | With the packet |
|---|---|---|
| Required elements | scan the handbook again | one checklist with open items counted |
| Deadline pressure | estimate the work left | days printed beside each open item |
| Resubmission | start the check from scratch | fix log shows what was already corrected |
The required list is generic on purpose: your handbook overrides it, and the packet tells you which lines to check against it.
Run it on the samples, right here
FIRST-LOAD
Data note: Your notes stay in this tab; the preflight runs locally and makes no request to a university system.
Go deeper: the companion app files the same reading as a stapled evidence packet
The article demo above runs without limits. The companion app keeps a local history, exports the rows as CSV, prints the ready-to-mail packet, and holds your drafts on this device — one free run, then $ 6 one-time for the layer that keeps filing.
The preflight and the open-item list are free. The paid layer prints the packet cover sheet and keeps the record of what was fixed, for the second submission.
Open the format preflight packet companionBoundary
This preflight checks the presence of the elements you describe; it cannot read your document or know your institution's rules. Handbooks, templates and exam-board guidance override it, and a passed checklist is not an acceptance. Confirm the final requirements with your supervisor or the research office before uploading.
What this is built on
- The required-element list is a generic checklist; the reader's own handbook and portal instructions take precedence.
- No institutional rule is asserted as verified — the packet only reports what appears in the notes supplied.
- Deadlines come from the reader's own portal date, never from an external calendar.
Before: the reader planned to check the formatting the night before. After: they can see three required elements still open, with the portal deadline printed beside them.