The step-by-step instructions have a general overview of the various templates: archive template, series template, paper template, article template, software component template, chapter template, book template. If you wish to use empty templates to copy and paste, then fill in, they are here. Finally, to get all details, read the full documentation.

No. This used to be a requirement earlier, but it proved to be too cumbersome. Now, it is only necessary if you happen to have a line starting with a word immediately followed by a colon (":"), and this word is not supposed to be a field tag.

Econpapers now makes available an interactive syntax checker. Watch also the monthly emails you get from RePEc: if you have syntax errors in your templates, there will be a link with a listing.

Your templates have a .rdf that matches the extension of another standard that was created after the one from RePEc. Web browsers expect the other one, unfortunately. You can still see your templates properly if you right-click and "view source".

There is no such requirement. Some services, however, appreciate when all series directory names are in lower case.

This is quite simple. Add another series template to your aaaseri.rdf file, where aaa is your archive code. Make sure that the series handle is the archive handle plus six letters, for example RePEc:aaa:wpaper. Then create a wpaper directory within you archive directory. For more details, see the series template description from the step-by-step instructions

You have two options:

1. Change the name for all issues, including the past ones: For this, just change the Name field in your series template.
2. Create a new series with the new name: Add another series template to your aaaseri.rdf file, where aaa is your archive code. Make sure that the series handle is the archive handle plus six letters, for example RePEc:aaa:wpaper. Then create a wpaper directory within you archive directory. For more details, see the series template description from the step-by-step instructions. Note that you can link the two serials by adding the handles of the other serial in the series templates with the Predecessor and Successor fields. That way, they will be considered as one for statistical purposes, for example.

File types are less important now that browsers recognize most file types by the file extension. In any case, a listing of file types is available here.

You can find them here.

Spelling...

Plain spelling mistakes, like Auhtor-Name:, Lenght:, Title : (note the extra space between "Title" and ":") happen. Using preset templates prevents that.

Use of inexistent items

Our scripts will stumble on items that are unknown to them. For example, File-Address: does not exist, use File-URL: instead. See the ReDIF documentation for a complete list of available items.

Line starts with inappropriate item

This can happen accidentally, for example with a title or an abstract, when by chance a line starts with a word immediately followed by a colon (":"). This is then interpreted as a tag header. The solution is to let a space precede this word.

Bad use of clusters

Information about an author has to be in one single cluster, before starting with the co-author. the same applies to various other clusters, like File-*, Maintainer-*, Publisher-*, etc. All clusters have to start with the *-Name:, for example Author-Name:, except for File-* that starts with File-URL:.

Problems with handles

Each entry must have a handle that is unique. Each handle must contain the proper archive code (3 letters) and the proper series code (6 characters). For example, for a paper it would be RePEc:cre:crefwp:75 or RePEc:wop:turnip:planting3456.

File-URL: wraps in the address

File-URL: should not wrap in the middle of the address, no browser can understand that. The address can be put on a separate line, though, as long as it starts with a space.

Series handles do not match

The handle for each series is specified in aaaseri.rdf and should have 6 characters (RePEc:aaa:ssssss). The items of this series should be located in a directory with the same 6 character name. Each item handle should contain the same 6 character code.

How to find out about mistakes

EconPapers now offers a handy service listing all possible syntax mistakes and bad URLs. To find how your archive or series fared, find it in the RePEc Data Check.

This is typically because the template is rejected because of a syntax error. Check the syntax here. If the syntax appears correct, the problem has typically to do with inappropriate information in the Author-Name: field. There should be one field for each author, and it should contain only the name. Affiliations belong in Author-Workplace-Name:, email addresses in Author-Email:. Finally, the names should be specified as First Last or Last, First. Anything else will confuse the RePEc Author Service. Note that you get the RePEc Author Service to automatically accept a paper into the author's profile. The procedure is described a few questions lower.

Another reason why material does not show up is that RePEc has difficulties downloading your data. Again, check for your archive here for any message in this regard. If you do not understand the message, this page can help you.

To have your series listed on EDIRC, you need to have its handle mentioned in the series template. Look up the handle on EDIRC (it starts with RePEc:edi:) and then use it at the end of your Provider-* block with a Provider-Institution field, for example:

Provider-Institution: RePEc:edi:degraca

This answer will be filled with suggestions from users as they come in.

Econlit requires more information than RePEc does. But most of this information can be provided with the regular RePEc tags. Make sure there is: Abstract:, Keywords:, Classification-JEL:, Length:, Creation-Date:. In addition, Econlit requires that first and last names of all authors are explicitely specified. Thus, after each Author-Name:, put the tags Author-Name-First: and Author-Name-Last:.

Usually, an item is added to an author's profile by having this author claiming it in the RePEc Author Service. This can take some itme. You can shorten the process by linking to the author profile directly in the templates you manage. At the end of the Author-* cluster, add a line like this:
Author-Person: pxx00
where pxx00 is the short-ID that can be found on an author's page on IDEAS or with this lookup tool. Make sure, as always, that Author-Name: is the first element of the cluster. Also, be extra careful to use the correct author short-ID, any error may attribute the paper to someone else!

See here.

See here.

By default, RePEc assumes that your template files are encoded in ISO-LATIN-1 or Windows-1252. If you want to use UTF-8, make sure that your files start with a byte-order mark, making sure the template-type declaration is still at the start of a subsequent line. Alternatively, you can now use the extension .redif (instead of .rdf) to signal the file is UTF-8 encoded.

The most likely issue is that you use one character set to write your templates, but then save your file in another character set. This happens most frequently with UTF-8 character sets ("Unicode") that are in a file that does not have a byte-order mark or an .rdf extension instead of .redif. See question above or a more extensive blog post.