Introduction
This document explains how to prepare documentation of work presented at an ACM-sponsored event, using ACM’s article template and TAPS, the ACM article production system.
Process Overview
There are several stages of preparing documentation of work to be presented at an ACM-sponsored event.
The first step is the preparation of the documentation to be submitted to the event for review. This version of the documentation is intentionally simplified – no rights information, single-column output, and in some cases, intentional anonymization of the documentation for single- or double-blind review.
The second stage begins when the work is accepted for presentation at the event. The author will complete the ACM Rights Form for this work, and refine the documentation of the work to be presented – adding rights information, finalizing citations and references, and making the document accessible.
Authors will deliver the LaTeX or Word source of their documentation to TAPS, and revise their documentation should TAPS or a production editor find issues with the documentation that need to be resolved.
The finalized documentation will be distributed through the ACM Digital Library.
The ACM Article Template
ACM has an article template that is used by almost all ACM publications. It has a number of variations for specific publications and communities, but all have a consistent look and feel to them.
An author can prepare their work using LaTeX or Microsoft Word, and authors that use LaTeX can prepare their work locally or online, using the Overleaf system.
TAPS
ACM’s article production system, TAPS, accepts LaTeX and Word source from authors, generates PDF and HTML5 versions of the documentation as output, and stores the content as XML. The PDF and HTML5 versions of the documentation will be published in the ACM Digital Library.
If there are processing errors or formatting issues with the submitted documentation, the author will receive e-mail from TAPS or from the production editor working on the proceedings with information on the issues to be resolved and their resolution. It is the author’s responsibility to make changes to the LaTeX or Word files and resubmit to TAPS, to resolve the issues in their documentation.
More information on TAPS can be found at this link.
Article Templates
The same article template files can be used to prepare many different kinds of documents, from two-page abstracts to full-length technical papers to journal articles. The only differences are (a) the length of the documents and (b) the template style that is used.
Please use the “sigconf” template style to prepare your documentation, unless you are preparing a full-length Technical Paper for the SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia conferences. If you are doing that, please use the “acmtog” template style. (A fully-anonymized TOG article sample is available from this link for your use in preparing a full-length article for the SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers program.) If you are preparing an article for PACMCGIT, please use the “acmsmall” template style.
Authors who use LaTeX to prepare their documentation should retrieve the template files from this link or install the “acmart” package and its dependencies in their local TeX installation (MikTeX, TeX Live, etc.)
An online alternative for authors who use LaTeX is Overleaf – a sample LaTeX document which uses the ACM article template can be found at this link.
More information on the use of LaTeX in preparing documentation for ACM events can be found at this link.
Authors who use Word to prepare their documentation must start with the “submission” template found at this link, and if their work is accepted for presentation and publication, continue the preparation of their documentation by attaching the “master” template file, found at these links:
to their Word document and completing the task of preparing the documentation of their work.
More information on the use of Word in preparing documentation for ACM events can be found at this link.
Examples
The following examples have been prepared with the ACM article template. The TOG article uses the “acmtog” template style, and the others use the “sigconf” template style.
- TOG article sample
- full-length technical paper sample
- short (“Technical Brief”) technical paper sample
- two-page abstract sample
- panel abstract sample
Course notes need not follow any particular formatting style:
Please note that these course notes samples do NOT have the now-required rights management text on the first page of the course notes document.
Citations and References
SIGGRAPH uses the “author year” citation and reference style. Please prepare your documentation using this style, and not the “numbered” citation and reference style.
If you are using LaTeX to prepare your documentation, include this command in the preamble of your document:
\citestyle{acmauthoryear}
use BibTeX to prepare your references, and include this command before the \bibliography{}
command:
\bibliographystyle{ACM-Reference-Format}
If you are using Word to prepare your documentation, please select the “author year” style when finalizing the preparation of your documentation.
More information on the preparation of citations and references with Word can be found at this link.
Rights Management
Authors must complete the ACM Rights Form for their work after it is accepted for presentation. This is a prerequisite for presentation and publication. The rights text that is added to your documentation is generated from the rights choices you make on this form – OA, copyright transfer, etc.
More information on author rights and the ACM Rights Form can be found at this link.
Third Party Material
If you are using in any material in your documentation or in your presentation that you or your co-authors did not create, you must identify that material on the rights form AND in the documentation of your work, AND provide documentation of your ability to use this material, by obtaining permission to use it from the owner and providing documentation of the permission you’ve received, or identifying it as public-domain or appropriately CC-licensed.
More information on the proper handling of third-party material can be found at this link.
Need Help? Have Questions?
If you need assistance, please feel free to reach out to me by e-mail at
dir-publications@siggraph.org. I am happy to help and have many years of experience in helping authors prepare their documentation.