File Requirements under Turnitin

Overview:

Turnitin provides the ability to compare the contents of a submitted file with the contents of millions of websites, journals, periodicals and other scholarly resources.

What to know:

Though Turnitin can support to check most of the files, but it still has some limitations that both teachers and students should be aware of. This guide will introduce you some of the limitations which you may need to pay attention to.

Turnitin will only accept files:

• less than 100MB;
• has a minimum of 20 words;
• and is less than 800 pages

Turnitin will only accept files as below that can generate Similarity Reports:

• Microsoft Word® (.doc/.docx)
• OpenOffice Text (.odt)
• WordPerfect® (.wpd)
• PostScript (.ps)
• HTML
• Hangul Word Processor file (.hwp)
• Rich text format (.rtf)
• Plain text (.txt)
• PDF (.pdf)
• Google Docs via Google Drive™

If you are using an unsupported word processor ( such as WPS ), you may need to save your plain text file as .txt or .rtf in order to upload to Turnitin.

The image, forms, or portfolios in the PDF file will not be accepted by Turnitin. For example, files that do not contain highlightable text (e.g. a scanned file - usually an image), documents containing multiple files or files created with software other than Adobe Acrobat® will not receive correct reports about the plagiarism rates.

• Microsoft PowerPoint® (.pptx, .ppt, .ppsx, and .pps)

It is possible to submit PowerPoint® files through Turnitin.com, TurnitinUK.com, Turnitin Basic integrations, newer versions of the Turnitin Direct integrations, and LTI compliant integrations only. Turnitin converts the PowerPoint® slide deck into a static PDF, leaving all text and images in their original format but leaving out features such as presenter notes, embedded video, and animations. Text with visual effects is not supported, and it is recommended that any visual effects such as shadows and 3D be removed prior to submitting to Turnitin.

• Microsoft Excel® (.xls and .xlsx)

The version of the file that can be viewed in the Document Viewer will look the same as it would if the Excel file had been saved as a PDF and submitted to Turnitin. We highly recommend that users pay attention to the image preview provided in the single file submission to verify that the file is presented in an acceptable manner. Users can adjust the way the file looks by editing the page setup and print area settings for the file prior to saving it and submitting it to Turnitin.  

The below files will not successfully generate a similarity report by Turnitin:

• Password protected files

• Microsoft® Works (.wps) files

• Microsoft Word 2007 macros-enabled .docm files

• OpenOffice Text (.odt) files created and downloaded from Google Docs online

• Document (.doc) files created using OpenOffice, as they are not 100% Microsoft Word equivalent

• Apple Pages

• Spreadsheets created outside of Microsoft Excel (i.e. .ods)

• Text with visual effects