This repository contains the source files for our paper on PAPERTOPIC.
The Paper subdirectory contains the source for the actual paper (TeX, etc.).
The Media subdirectory should be used to store files that are not used in the final paper, but are used to generate content in the paper. For instance, suppose you have a figure showing some geometry nicely rendered in Maya; the Media directory would contain the Maya source file, whereas the actual image might be stored in Paper/images. Keeping the source files around is super useful for when you (inevitably) want to modify the figures 6 months later; keeping them separate from the paper source itself helps keeps things organized. It also limits size bloat, in case you need to send the paper source to someone (e.g., journal editors will sometimes ask for the source).
The Makefile in the Paper/ subdirectory is setup to allow you to easily build the paper and its bibliography. You will likely want to rename a few files, so that they match your current project. In particular:
Paper/Paper.tex -> Paper/YourPaperName.tex
Paper/Paper.bib -> Paper/YourPaperName.bib
You will then also need to change the Makefile so that the first line reads TARGET = YourPaperName, and the .tex file so that the bibliography line reads \bibliography{YourPaperName} (this line is near the end of the document, right before the graveyard).
After changing the names (as above), you should just be able to type
make
to build your paper. On Mac, this will also open the paper PDF (on other platforms, you may get an error that the command open doesn't exist...). Note that this command won't automatically build the bibliography; for that, you'll need to type
make bib
(The reason for separating these commands is just that the bibliography takes a bit longer to build.) Finally, you can build a diff of the current paper with an earlier version from the GitHub repo by typing
make diff
This command will compile (and open) a PDF showing you what changed (by running a tool called latexdiff). To set the previous version, you should use git log to find the commit number of the version of interest, and copy/paste this string into the DIFFVERSION = field of the Makefile.
Even if you take care to compress your images, pdflatex often produces extremely bloated PDF files (e.g., 80MB for a document that can nicely be compressed down to 10MB without any noticeable loss of fidelity). A good way to get a high-quality compressed version of your final paper is to run the File -> Save as Other -> Optimized PDF… from Adobe Acrobat. (Your readers will thank you!)
The paper template includes a collection of standard macros, in the package geometrycollective.sty. Take a look through these before you start writing—they're likely to save you some trouble, and make sure your document is nicely/consistently formatted.
You may also want to start a collection of macros specific to the current paper. Some people like to just keep these at the top of the file; others like to create an external file, like MyPaperMacros.tex, which can be included via the command \input{MyPaperMacros.tex}.
Don't get spooked out—the "graveyard" is just a place to move text/figures that you don't want to use anymore, but you might want to refer to later. Nothing included in this section will get compiled into the document (though you may still want to comment it out, to avoid confusion as you're skimming your source).
You'll save yourself time and trouble by creating figures that are compatible in shape, size, and style with the document style. The width of a single-column figure is 243.15pt; the width of a double-column figure is 510.30pt. You can always get updated values directly via TeX; see the commands used in Paper/template.tex. Please do not create diagrams at arbitrary sizes and scale them up/down on import! (E.g., using width= or scale= options.) Building diagrams this way will mean that your line widths, etc., will look different in each figure, and worse, your text/labels may become illegible, or look huge relative to the surrounding text.
An Illustrator template that conforms to this specification is provided in Media/ACM Two Column.ai. To install this template, just drop it in /Applications/Adobe Illustrator/Support Files/New Document Profiles/en_US, or the analogous path on your system. You should now be able to select this template from the New Document dialog.
As of 2026, the main document font is Libertinus Serif (formerly Libertine) 9pt. The font for captions is Libertinus Sans (formerly Biolinium) 8pt. The canonical version of these fonts is hosted at
https://github.com/alerque/libertinus/
Or you can install it via Homebrew via
brew install --cask font-libertinus
Please use this version of the fonts so that diagrams are easy to share between collaborators. If you use arbitrary versions of the fonts (e.g., that you find via Google Search), Illustrator and other programs will often prompt you about missing fonts, or display diagrams incorrectly.
You can get the ACM fonts in LaTeXiT by going to the LaTeX -> Show Preamble menu, which brings up a preamble palette. In this preamble you can then add the lines
\usepackage{libertine}
\usepackage[libertine]{newtxmath}
As of 2020, pdflatex still has poor support for certain PDF features, especially transparent gradients. Another common error is to save PDF files in CMYK color mode, which in some PDF viewers (like Preview on the Mac) can cause the whole page containing the image to look faded. In general, you should double check that any included images render properly in your final document.
In order to make figures editable by your coauthors, you should ensure that all bitmap images are embedded in the PDF.
In short, there are two ways an Adobe Illustrator document can refer to images:
- Linked: The file stores a path to an external bitmap file (JPG, PNG, etc.)
- Embedded: The bitmap image is stored exclusively in the Illustrator document, with no external links.
Where this gets confusing is that, if you save a file as PDF, Illustrator will also embed a copy of the bitmap image in the PDF file. However, if the Illustrator document used any external links, the PDF will still not be editable by other users. Instead, loading the PDF into Illustrator will yield a message of the form
Could not find the linked file "bitmap.jpg". Choose Replace
to select another file or Ignore to leave the link unchanged.
Unless your coauthors have a copy of bitmap.jpg, they will be unable to edit the file.
The solution is to make sure that all bitmap images are embedded. There are two ways to make this happen:
- (Safe way) Always import bitmap images by copying and pasting from another program (like Photoshop) into Illustrator. This way you can be sure that Illustrator is not linking to an external file (because it does not know where the pixels on the clipboard came from!)
- (Less safe way) Before saving your final document, select any bitmap images, then open up the
Linkspalette from theWindowmenu. In the upper-right corner of this palette there is a drop-down menu; select theEmbed Image(s)option.
The reason that the "less safe" way is less safe is that you can easily forget to do it!
Note that in some cases it is convenient to link to external files, so that the Illustrator composition is automatically updated when the bitmap images change (e.g., when images are re-rendered). In this case, a good practice is to keep a linked version in the /Media subdirectory, but embed all images before putting a final figure in the /Paper/images subdirectory.