PMC Utilities
square Utilities Index

PMC Utilities

Access to PMC Data
Open Access Subset

Articles in the PMC Open Access Subset are protected by copyright, but are made available under a Creative Commons or similar license that generally allows more liberal redistribution and reuse than a traditional copyrighted work.

OAI Service

The PubMed Central OAI service (PMC-OAI) provides access to metadata of all items in the PMC archive, as well as to the full text of a subset of these items.

E-utilities

Entrez Programming Utilities are tools that provide automated retrieval options for Entrez data.

FTP Service

Use the PMC FTP service to download the complete set of available files (XML, images, PDF, and supplementary data) for articles in the Open Access Subset.

Submission of Content to PMC
PMC Style Resources
For content being tagged in the NLM Journal Publishing Tag Set, PMC has compiled a set of style requirements. The resources and tools listed below assist in generating XML according to this style. Compliance with PMC style is preferred and facilitates a more efficient workflow through PMC.
Tagging Guidelines

Detailed instructions for tagging journal articles in XML beyond simply validating against the NLM DTD. This resource should be used when marking up content for PubMed Central.

Updates to the Tagging Guidelines are announced through an email distribution list.

Style Checker

The Online PMC Style Checker provides a detailed report of all items in an XML file that do not comply with PMC style. The report will list items as either warnings or errors. Errors are required fixes and warnings are suggested fixes.

PMC also offers a downloadable PMC Style Checker that has the same functionality as the Online version, but can be run locally.

Resources for All Content
Journal Publishing DTD

Provides a set of XML modules that define elements and attributes for describing the textual and graphical content of journal articles as well as some non-article material such as letters, editorials, book reviews, and product reviews.

XML Validator

Use this tool to validate XML files against a DTD. The DTD must be identified with a properly formed DOCTYPE declaration.

Article Previewer

This tool allows you to view an article as it would appear in PubMed Central.

SGML Validator

Use this tool to validate SGML files that will be submitted to PMC. The DTD must be identified with a properly formed DOCTYPE declaration, and the DTD must have previously been submitted to PMC.

XML Resources

Provides external links to detailed information on topics such as XML, XSL/XSLT, Xpath, Xlink, and Unicode.