Acta Humanitarica blind review: manuscript and file metadata checklist

A manuscript can look anonymous on page one and still identify its authors in the acknowledgements, file properties, or a stray biography. For *Acta humanitarica academiae Saulensis*, blind-review preparation is therefore a file-separation task, not a single find-and-delete operation.

This guide answers one narrow question: how should authors separate the review manuscript from author information before uploading to Acta humanitarica academiae Saulensis? The direct requirements below come from the journal's current submission page. The organization steps are practical suggestions, not replacements for the live journal instructions or the authors' decisions.

Start with the Acta humanitarica academiae Saulensis preparation page and compare the stored requirements with the journal's current official guidance for the intended article type.

Treat the submission as two information sets

The journal says that all papers must be prepared for blind review. Information that could identify the authors—including author details and acknowledgements—should be omitted from the review manuscript. The same page asks authors to provide their full names and affiliations in the submission form, identify a corresponding author, and supply that person's email address there.

That creates two distinct information sets:

• the review manuscript, which should not reveal the authors; and
• the author information supplied through the submission system and any separate author-detail material the system requests.

A practical way to preserve that boundary is to create two clearly named working folders before the final export. Keep the anonymized manuscript in one folder and the author information in another. This is an author-side control, not a journal rule, but it reduces the chance that a title page or acknowledgement block is copied back into the review file during last-minute edits.

Do not assume that the absence of names from the first page makes the whole file anonymous. The final check needs to cover the complete manuscript and the document's stored properties.

Remove visible identifiers from the review copy

The journal explicitly names author details and acknowledgements as information to omit for blind review. Begin with a full-document search for each author's surname, institution, department, email address, and other direct identifiers. Then inspect places that a simple search may miss:

1. the title page and running header;
2. acknowledgements and funding prose;
3. author-contribution statements;
4. table or figure credits;
5. appendices and supplementary notes;
6. headers, footers, comments, and tracked changes; and
7. file names visible to reviewers or editors.

This does not mean every reference to an author's prior work must automatically be removed or rewritten. Self-citation and anonymization choices can affect scholarly meaning, so authors should follow the current journal instructions and make those decisions themselves. The safe formatting task is to flag possible identifiers for author review rather than silently changing the research record.

The journal's page also asks the corresponding author for short biographical information at submission and later asks accepted co-authors for biographies. Keep biographies outside the blind-review manuscript unless the live system or editors direct otherwise.

Clean the Microsoft Word file properties

The official instructions call out Microsoft Office document properties separately. They tell authors to use Word's document inspection path—File, Information, Check for Issues, Inspect Document—and remove document properties and personal information before saving.

Run that check on the exact file intended for upload, not only on an earlier working draft. After the inspection:

1. save the cleaned file under its final review filename;
2. close Word completely;
3. reopen the saved file;
4. confirm that comments and tracked changes are not exposing names; and
5. run the document inspection again to verify the cleaned state.

Document inspection is useful, but it is not a substitute for reading the manuscript. A name typed into an acknowledgement, figure caption, or appendix may remain ordinary document text even after personal metadata has been removed.

If the review file is prepared in another supported format, inspect that application's equivalent metadata and revision-history controls. The journal currently accepts Microsoft Word or OpenDocument files, while the submission checklist also mentions RTF. Authors should confirm the exact format options shown in the live submission system before upload.

Keep the author form complete while the manuscript stays anonymous

Blind review does not mean withholding required author information from the journal. The submission page asks for full names and affiliations in the form, encourages ORCID and institutional ROR information, identifies one corresponding author, and requests a contribution explanation using CRediT when there is more than one author.

Prepare that information in a separate author-approved source so the submission form can be completed consistently without reopening the blind manuscript and adding names to it. A practical author-information sheet can include:

• each author's approved display name and affiliation;
• ORCID and institutional ROR details where applicable;
• the corresponding author's approved contact information;
• the author-approved contribution statement; and
• the short biography requested at the current submission stage.

This sheet is an internal preparation aid. It should not be uploaded as the blind manuscript, and it should never be used to guess affiliations, contribution roles, or identifiers. Every author controls their own information and the authors remain responsible for approving it.

Reconcile the review manuscript's basic structure

Anonymization should not leave the review copy structurally incomplete. The journal's current guidance lists a concise title, an abstract of no more than 200 words, up to five keywords separated by semicolons, an introduction, the main text, and appendices where needed. It describes a typical paper limit of 40,000 characters including spaces, covering the abstract, tables, references, figure captions, and endnotes.

After removing identifiers, check that the manuscript still contains the scholarly material reviewers need:

• the title remains informative without author names;
• the abstract stays within the stated limit;
• no more than five keywords remain and they use the requested separator;
• headings still follow a consistent hierarchy;
• every figure and table is cited in the text; and
• appendices remain clearly labeled and connected to the main manuscript.

The journal also says illustrations, figures, and tables should appear within the text at the appropriate points rather than being collected at the end. Tables should carry captions above and notes below. These layout checks belong in the review file even though author information lives elsewhere.

Audit the final upload folder

The last useful check is against the files, not the memory of what was edited. Create a clean upload folder containing only the author-approved submission files, then open every item from that folder.

For the review manuscript, verify:

1. No author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, biographies, or direct contact details remain in visible text.
2. Comments, tracked changes, headers, footers, and document properties do not reveal the authors.
3. The title, abstract, keywords, main text, tables, figures, references, and appendices remain complete.
4. The final filename is neutral and does not contain an author's name or institution.
5. The chosen file format matches the current portal options.

For the separate author information, verify:

1. Names and affiliations match each author's approved form.
2. The corresponding author is clearly identified.
3. ORCID, ROR, biography, and contribution information is present only where currently requested.
4. No private author-information file is accidentally selected as the blind-review manuscript.

Recheck the official submission page on the day of upload. Journal instructions, templates, and portal fields can change after a working draft begins.

Protect the review boundary without changing the research

The cleanest blind-review package keeps two truths in view at once: the journal still needs accurate author information, and reviewers should receive a manuscript that does not identify those authors. Separating the files early makes both requirements easier to verify.

Articlo formats author-provided manuscripts and checks them against stored journal requirements. It does not write or interpret research, decide how self-citations should be anonymized, submit on an author's behalf, or guarantee acceptance. Authors remain responsible for research content, personal information, and submission decisions.

Run a free Acta humanitarica academiae Saulensis readiness check or revisit the journal-specific preparation page before upload.