Venue Templates

When to Use

• You are submitting a manuscript to a specific journal (e.g., Nature, Science, PLOS, Cell Press, IEEE, ACM) and must follow its official LaTeX class/style and author instructions.
• You are preparing a conference paper (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, CHI, ACL/EMNLP) with strict page limits, anonymization rules, and required formatting.
• You need to produce a conference poster in a standard size (A0/A1/36×48/etc.) using common LaTeX poster packages.
• You are drafting a grant proposal (e.g., NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA) where compliance constraints (page limits, margins, font rules, required sections) are enforced.
• You want to validate that a compiled PDF complies with venue requirements (page count, margins, fonts, reference style, figure constraints).

Key Features

• Template library for:
  • Journal articles (Nature portfolio, Science family, PLOS, Cell Press, IEEE, ACM, Springer/Elsevier/Wiley/BMC/Frontiers, etc.)
  • Conference papers (NeurIPS/ICML/ICLR/CVPR/AAAI/CHI/SIGKDD/EMNLP/SIGIR/USENIX, etc.)
  • Research posters (A0/A1/US sizes; beamerposter, tikzposter, baposter)
  • Grant proposals (NSF/NIH/DOE/DARPA + selected foundations)
• Venue requirements references (page limits, fonts, margins, spacing, anonymization, file formats, supplementary limits).
• Helper scripts to:
  • query templates/requirements by venue (scripts/query_template.py)
  • customize templates with metadata (scripts/customize_template.py)
  • validate compiled outputs (scripts/validate_format.py)
• Writing style guides and examples (how the “voice” differs across venues), stored under references/ and assets/examples/.

Dependencies

• Python >=3.10
• TeX Live >=2023 (or MiKTeX >=23.x)
• latexmk >=4.80 (recommended for reproducible builds)

Example Usage

A minimal end-to-end workflow (query → customize → compile → validate):

# 1) Discover templates and requirements for a venue
python scripts/query_template.py --venue "NeurIPS" --type "article"
python scripts/query_template.py --venue "NeurIPS" --requirements

# 2) Customize a template (example: Nature article)
python scripts/customize_template.py \
  --template assets/journals/nature_article.tex \
  --title "Your Paper Title" \
  --authors "First Author, Second Author" \
  --affiliations "University Name" \
  --output my_nature_paper.tex

# 3) Compile (choose one)
latexmk -pdf my_nature_paper.tex
# or:
pdflatex my_nature_paper.tex
bibtex my_nature_paper
pdflatex my_nature_paper.tex
pdflatex my_nature_paper.tex

# 4) Validate the compiled PDF against venue rules
python scripts/validate_format.py \
  --file my_nature_paper.pdf \
  --venue "Nature" \
  --check-all

Common reference and asset locations used by this skill:

• Requirements:
  • references/journals_formatting.md
  • references/conferences_formatting.md
  • references/posters_guidelines.md
  • references/grants_requirements.md
• Templates:
  • assets/journals/
  • assets/posters/
  • assets/grants/
• Writing style guides:
  • references/venue_writing_styles.md
  • references/nature_science_style.md
  • references/ml_conference_style.md
  • references/reviewer_expectations.md
• Writing examples:
  • assets/examples/

Implementation Details

• Template selection logic

  • Use scripts/query_template.py to map (venue, document type) to a canonical template path under assets/ and to the corresponding requirements entry under references/.
  • Prefer official venue class/style files when available (e.g., conference .sty files), and treat local templates as wrappers/examples.

• Customization model

  • scripts/customize_template.py replaces placeholders (title/authors/affiliations/email and other metadata) while preserving venue-controlled formatting directives.
  • Recommended practice: do not override class options, margins, font settings, or bibliography style unless the venue explicitly allows it.

• Validation checks (typical)

  • Page count vs. venue limit (e.g., NeurIPS/ICML main text limits; NSF/NIH section limits).
  • Margin and font constraints (common in grants; sometimes enforced in conferences).
  • Reference/citation style consistency (numeric vs author-year; bracket vs superscript).
  • Figure constraints (resolution guidance, allowed formats, color requirements).
  • Anonymization requirements for double-blind venues (presence of author-identifying metadata).

• Poster sizing and layout

  • Poster templates target standard sizes (A0/A1 and common US dimensions) and provide grid/column structures and recommended font scales for distance readability.
  • Typical packages supported: beamerposter, tikzposter, baposter.

• Style guides (beyond formatting)

  • Venue writing conventions are documented under references/ (e.g., narrative breadth for Nature/Science vs. contribution-focused structure for ML conferences).
  • Examples under assets/examples/ illustrate venue-typical abstracts/introductions/structured sections.