ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

arXiv’s goal is equitable access to scientific research for all – and to achieve this, we have been working to make research papers more accessible for arXiv users with disabilities. We are happy to announce that as of Monday, December 18th, arXiv is now generating an HTML formatted version of all papers submitted in TeX/LaTeX (as long as papers were submitted on or after December 1st, 2023 and HTML conversion is successful – more on this below).

HTML is not replacing PDF but will be an additional format available for arXiv users. Submitters will be invited to preview the HTML version of their papers during submission time, the same way they have always done with PDF.

When accessing a paper’s abstract page, readers will see a link to view the HTML paper right under the PDF link:

The request to offer arXiv-hosted papers in HTML format comes directly from scientists with disabilities who face barriers to accessing the research they need. HTML formatted papers are more easily and accurately read by screen readers and other technologies, which can assist researchers with reading disabilities, including blindness, low vision, dyslexia, and more.

We know that the HTML conversion isn’t perfect yet – right now our HTML is in the “experimental” phase as we work to make conversion more accurate. Currently, not every paper will be able to be correctly converted into HTML. However, researchers with disabilities have told arXiv that HTML is needed *now* for accessibility, and so we wanted to offer that accessibility as quickly as possible, while we continue to work on improving conversions with the help of our community. arXiv will *not* prevent or hold submissions where the HTML conversion has failed, but we do hope that authors will carefully review the HTML version of their submission, as sometimes small changes in the source TeX code can improve the HTML rendering.

Experimental HTML is a big step towards making science accessible to all. We want to thank everyone who collaborated on arXiv’s pilot HTML Papers project which includes The LaTeX Project, and the LaTeXML team from NIST. If you are familiar with ar5iv, an arXivLabs collaboration, our HTML offering is essentially bringing this impactful project fully “in-house”. Our ultimate goal is to backfill arXiv’s entire corpus so that every paper will have an HTML version, but for now this feature is reserved for new papers.

And a big thank you to all the arXiv users who have taken the time to fill out bug reports for arXiv’s HTML Papers project – our team is currently reading and analyzing the bug reports and hope to make our first round of improvements in the new year.