Instructions for authors

This page describes the formatting guidelines for ACL 2015.

SUBMISSION OF CAMERA-READY PAPERS

This page describes the important information for submitting camera-ready papers for ACL 2015.

Read this page carefully to follow the instructions; otherwise, it is possible that your paper is not uploaded, or wrong information will appear on the program.

Read the style file guideline for the details of the formatting.

• » Deadline:
  • May 29, 2015 (long papers), June 21, 2015 (short papers)
• » Submission site:
  • We use the START system as usual
  • Long paper: https://www.softconf.com/acl2015/papers
  • Short paper: https://www.softconf.com/acl2015/shortpapers
• » Format:
  • Page limit: 9 pages (long papers) or 5 pages (short papers) for content, and 2 pages for references (changed from the submission for reviewing)
  • Others: same as the guidelines specified in the style file
• » Metadata:
  • The metadata (author names and affiliations) you specify in START will be used to produce the conference program. If they are different, the publication chairs may resolve the difference without consulting with you; so it is in your own interest to double-check that the information is consistent.
• » PDF checking:
  • When uploading the PDF file of your paper, the START system checks the validity of the format of your PDF. It checks page size, margins, and font embedding. If the paper does not conform to the regulation, the paper will not be uploaded.
• » LaTeX source submission:
  • This year, we collect LaTeX sources additionally, to create XML version of proceedings. If you do not submit latex sources, your paper will not appear in the XML proceedings.

METADATA

In the START submission site, you are asked to input the metadata of the authors. It is very important to make sure that the metadata you input to START and the corresponding information on the paper are equivalent, because the author names and affiliations you specify in START will be used to generate the ACL Anthology entries and the index of the proceedings. If they are different, the publication chairs may resolve the difference without consulting with you; so it is in your own interest to double-check that the information is consistent.

PDF CHECKING

Your paper will not be uploaded if it does not conform to the formatting guideline. The START system will automatically check the followings:

• » Page size
• » Margins
• » Font embeddings

Before the final submission, check the validity of your paper by yourself. Here is some useful information for how to check it.

1. Use pdfinfo, pdffont

"pdfinfo YOUR_PDF_FILE.pdf" will output information like this:

Pages: 4

Page size: 595.276 x 841.89 pts (A4)

"Page size" must be "A4" (not "letter").

"pdffonts YOUR_PDF_FILE.pdf" will output the list of fonts used in your PDF, where the column "emb" indicates whether the font is embedded. Make sure that all fonts except Standard 14 Fonts (Times, Courier, Helvetica, Symbol, Zapf Dingbats) are embedded. In particular, papers including Asian fonts must be checked carefully; the papers look properly with your localized PDF reader, while they will not appear correctly with other PDF readers.

2. Use Acrobat Reader

"File" -> "Properties" shows a window like this:

"Page Size" must be "21 x 29.7cm" (or 8.27 x 11.7 in) (A4).

"File" -> "Properties" -> "Fonts" will show a window like:

Make sure that all fonts except Standard 14 Fonts (Times, Courier, Helvetica, Symbol, Zapf Dingbats) are embedded (indicated by "Embedded" or "Embedded Subset"). In particular, papers including Asian fonts must be checked carefully; the papers look properly with your localized PDF reader, while they will not appear correctly with other PDF readers.

3. Use Preview on Mac

"Tools" -> "Show Inspector" shows a window like the following:

"Page size" must be "21 x 29.7cm" (or 8.27 x 11.7 in) (A4).

LaTeX SOURCE SUBMISSION

We will collect LaTeX sources of your camera-ready paper. The submission of LaTeX sources is not obligatory, but it is strongly recommended. LaTeX sources are automatically converted to XML by LaTeXML, and the XML version of your paper will appear in the ACL anthology as XML proceedings, alongside the PDF version. If you do not submit latex sources, your paper will not appear in the XML proceedings (of course, the PDF version of your paper will still appear in the ACL Anthology even when you do not submit LaTeX sources).

In the submission page, you will see In Part C the field to upload LaTeX sources just below the field for the PDF file (see below). Upload the zip file containing latex sources, bib files (.bib), and other attachment files (images, etc.).

The LaTeXML website applies exactly the same conversion that we will use for the conversion in the ACL Anthology, so you may want to try it to preview what your XML paper will look like.

LaTeX SUBMISSION

This section provides some useful information about the LaTeX submission and the conversion into XML proceedings.

• » How to submit your LaTeX sources: Specify the zip file containing latex sources and all necessary files in the same way as uploading the camera-ready paper.
• » Try LaTeXML web interface: You can check how your paper will look like via the web interface.
• » Supported LaTeX packages: LaTeXML does not support all LaTeX packages. You may want to use LaTeX packages officially supported by LaTeXML, to ensure that your paper will look as you expect.

See more detailed information below.

How to submit your LaTeX sources

START provides you with an interface to upload your LaTeX sources. You will find a field to input the file name of your latex source package, just below the field to specify the camera-ready PDF file (in Part C). Zip all your LaTeX sources (*.tex), bib files (*.bib), and necessary attachments (images, etc.), and specify (or drag-and-drop) the name of the zip file.

Try LaTeXML web interface

It is suggested to try LaTeXML prior to the final submission to see how the conversion looks like. We will apply the same conversion that you can try with the LaTeXML web interface (sorry that it does not work with Safari). Use it in the following procedure:

• » Zip all of your LaTeX sources (*.tex), bib files (*.bib), and necessary attachments (images, etc.).
• » Upload (or drag-and-drop) your zip file to the server.
• » You will see a download link after a short period. Click the link to obtain the XML version of your paper.

Note: The LaTeXML website will not store the LaTeX sources you upload, so feel free to try this interface with an unfinished draft of your paper. However, we will store (the final version of) the LaTeX sources you upload in the START system, and may use them to generate improved XML in the future.

Supported LaTeX packages

LaTeXML does not support all of the LaTeX packages. You will possibly get unexpected conversion results when you use unsupported packages. Therefore, it is encouraged to use officially supported packages listed below:

a4, a4wide, aasms, aaspp, aastex, acronym, ae, afterpage, alltt, amsbsy, amscd, amsfonts, amsmath, amsopn, amsppt, amsrefs, amssymb, amstex, amstext, amsthm, amsxtra, array, avant, babel, bbm, bbold, beton, bm, bookman, cancel, caption, ccfonts, chancery, charter, cite, citesort, cmbright, color, colortbl, comment, concmath, courier, cropmark, dcolumn, doublespace, elsart, emulateapj, enumerate, epigraph, epsf, epsfig, epstopdf, eucal, eufrak, euler, eulervm, eurosym, euscript, exscale, fixltx2e, fleqn, float, floatfig, floatflt, fontenc, fontspec, footmisc, fourier, framed, fullpage, german, graphics, graphicx, helvet, here, hhline, html, hyperref, hyperxmp, ifpdf, indentfirst, inputenc, iopams, keyval, latexml, latexsym, listings, longtable, lscape, luximono, lxRDFa, makeidx, mathpazo, mathpple, mathptm, mathptmx, mathrsfs, multicol, multido, multirow, natbib, newcent, ngerman, ntheorem, numprint, palatino, paralist, pifont, placeins, psfig, pspicture, pst-grad, pst-node, pstricks, pxfonts, revsymb, revtex, revtex4, rsfs, scalefnt, setspace, subfigure, supertabular, tabularx, textcomp, texvc, theorem, times, tocbibind, txfonts, upgreek, upref, url, utopia, wrapfig, xcolor, xspace, xunicode, yfonts

WHAT'S NEW FOR ACL 2015?

When your paper is accepted for publication at ACL 2015, you have to submit the camera-ready version of your paper by May 29, 2015 (long papers) or June 21, 2015 (short papers).

The submission instruction involves a couple of new procedures:

• » Automatic PDF checking: Before uploading the paper, the START system checks the validity of the format of your PDF. It checks margins, font embedding, page number, etc. If the paper does not conform to the regulation, the paper will not be uploaded.
• » LaTeX source submission: This year, we collect LaTeX sources additionally, to create XML version of proceedings. If you do not submit latex sources, your paper will not appear in the XML proceedings.

PAPERS IN XML FORMAT

One innovation which we are introducing for ACL 2015 is that we will publish papers in machine-readable XML in the ACL Anthology, in addition to the traditional PDF format. This will allow us to create, over the next few years, a growing corpus of scientific text for our own future research, and picks up on recent initiatives on converting ACL papers from earlier years to XML.

When you submit your camera-ready paper, we will automatically convert the LaTeX source code into XML using the LaTeXML tool. For now, uploading your LaTeX sources along with the camera-ready PDF will be a voluntary option. However, the more authors make use of this option, the more XML papers we will have in the Anthology, so we encourage everyone to participate.

ACL 2015 STYLE FILES

Using LaTeX style files is recommended, since we will collect LaTeX sources this year.

• » acl2015.tex (LaTeX)
• » acl2015.sty (LaTeX)
• » acl2015.pdf (LaTeX)
• » acl.bst (LaTeX)
• » acl2015.dot (MSWord)

ACL 2015 PUBLICATION CHAIRS

• » Wanxiang Che, Harbin Institute of Technology

  Email: car@ir.hit.edu.cn

• » Guodong Zhou, Soochow University

  Email: gdzhou@suda.edu.cn