Simplified IEEE Template

Quick start for modern LaTeXing for an IEEE conference, based on the Manuscript Template for Conference Proceedings.

The official template is distributed via CTAN as the IEEEtran package, which is actively maintained. However, de-facto configurations (hyperref) and modern features of latex (microtype) are not configured. This template does it.

This template is for the conferences. It is based on the bare_conf_compsoc.tex distributed by IEEE. In case you need other configurations, please adapt paper-conference.tex or run the latex template generator.

Usage

• paper.tex is the main document
• Use "lualatex + bibtex" in your TeX editor or latexmk paper / make in the command line

Using latexmk

latexmk is a very smart tool for latex compilation. It executes the latex tools as often as needed to get the final PDF. (More information about why latexmk is great can be found at https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/249243/9075.)

To build the whole document, execute following command. Note that this requires a working perl installation.

latexmk paper

To enable latexmk, please move _latexmkrc to latexmkrc.

If you want automatic compilation use following command:

latexmk -pvc paper

This will also open a Sumatra PDF and only works with the supplied configuration.

latexmk configuration

This repository ships a .latexmkrc which is read by latexmk. In case there is a _latexmkrc file, you need to rename it to .latexmkrc. It is configured for Windows and especially sets Sumatra PDF as default PDF viewer. You can make this local configuration a global configuration, when you put it at the right place.

If you want to add more packages, configure it there. For instance, for support of makeglossaries see http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1226/how-to-make-latexmk-use-makeglossaries.

Debugging LaTeX errors

In case something goes wrong, you can instruct the LaTeX compiler to stop at the first error:

lualatex --synctex=1 --shell-escape paper

Run bibtex paper to get the bibliography rendered (execute lualatex afterwards).

Advanced usage

On the command line, there are additional features:

• latexmk -C or make clean for cleaning up
• make format to reformat the .tex files (one sentence per line and indent)
• make aspell for interactive spell checking
• make stand: Creates a new PDF with the current status of the thesis.
• make view: Opens the configured viewer
• make mrproper: Cleans up and removes also editor backup files.

Benefits

Following features are enabled in this template:

• Provides a skeletal paper.tex file
• Shows how IEEE copyright notice can be added.
• (Optional) Typesetting of listings using advanced highlighting powered by the minted package. minted provides better output than listings, but requires pygments to be installed.
• Generated PDF allows for copy and paste of text without getting words with ligatures such as "workflow" destroyed. This is enabled by glyphtounicode, which encodes ligatures (such as fl) using unicode characters.
• Ligatures are removed if they are typeset at the wrong place. This is enabled by the selnolig package.
• Support of hyperlinked references without extra color thanx to hyperref.
• Better breaking of long URLs.
• Support for \powerset command.
• (Optional) Support todos as pdf annotations. This is enabled by the pdfcomment package.
• microtypographic extensions for a better look of the paper.
• Modern packages such as microtype, cleveref, csquotes, paralist, hyperref, hypcap, upquote, booktabs.
• (Optional) LaTeX compilation using the modern lualatex compiler. For older systems, pdflatex is still supported.
• latexmk for easy compilation of the LaTeX document.
• Ready-to-go configuration for latexindent.
• Proper hyphenation and microtype for English texts.

Disabled features

Following features were not activated for this template. You can run the latex template generator to enable the features.

Hints on writing an abstract and thesis by Dirk Fahland.

There is currently no official biblatex support. A first step towards that is done at the biblatex-ieee package.

Examples

• paper-conference.pdf - regular conference paper.
• paper-conference-minted.pdf - conference paper showing minted in action.

Quick start

• Click on Download ZIP or here.
• Extract main.zip in the folder where you want to write your paper.
• Edit paper-conference.tex.
• latexmk paper-conference.

Attention regarding compsocconf

Some conferences distribute a IEEEtran.cls V1.7a dated 2007 and a parameter compsocconf. The parameter compsocconf was NEVER included in Michael Shell's IEEEtran.cls file. It is unclear, who did this patch and why it is around in the wild.

The most recent version is V1.8b and automatically distributed over CTAN, because it is actively maintained by Michael Shell at http://www.michaelshell.org/tex/ieeetran/. A full changelog is available at http://mirror.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/changelog.txt.

 2014/09/17 V1.8a (MDS) changes:

 1) Extensive rework of the compsoc mode to comply with the latest standards
    of the IEEE Computer Society.

The class parameter compsocconf never existed officially. One has to use conference, compsoc, because the parameters are "orthogonal": Either "conference" or "journal", either "compsoc" or not. With a modern IEEEtran.cls, you'll get

LaTeX Warning: Unused global option(s):
    [compsocconf].

compsoc option is not needed any more

When using the 2007 version or the most recent version with (the unhandled) compsocconf, you'll get paper-conference.pdf instead of paper-conference-compsoc.pdf. That differs significantly in the style used for section headings. paper-conference-compsoc.pdf was removed from the build since August 2021, because compsoc option was not used by computer science conferences in 2021.

IEEE distributes their templates at https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html. With the update of July 2017, the archive https://www.ieee.org/documents/ieee-latex-conference-template.zip contains both bare_conf.tex and bare_conf_compsoc.tex. Thus, the conference should state which option to use.

All in all, the distributions of IEEEtran from 2007 are roughly equivalent to \documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran} (and version V1.8b), which does not comply with IEEE's rules for computer science conferences, because the compsoc option is missing.

Hence, double check with your conference whether you have to use compsoc or not.

Statement from IEEE:

Please note that, as stated on the webpage https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html. "IEEE does not require a specific format for their conference articles". Thus, we dot not purport that the "compsoc" is a requirement for publishing conference papers with us.

Tool hints

Prerequisites

• Windows: Recent MiKTeX. MiKTeX installation hints are given at http://latextemplates.github.io/scientific-thesis-template/#installation-hints-for-windows.
• Mac OS X: Recent TeX Live (e.g. through MacTeX) - Try sudo tlmgr update --all if you encounter issues with biblatex
• Linux: Recent TeX Live distribution
• Grammar and spell checking is available at [TeXstudio]. Please download LanguageTool (Windows: choco install languagetool) and configure TeXstudio to use it. Note that it is enough to point to languagetool.jar. If TeXstudio doesn't fit your need, check the list of all available LaTeX Editors.
• Use JabRef to manage your bibliography (Windows: choco install jabref).

Usage of minted

To have minted running properly, you have to do following steps on Windows:

1. Install python: choco install python - that uses chocolatey to install Python
2. Install pygments: pip instal pygments - that uses the Pyhton package manager to install the pygments library
3. When latexing, use -shell-escape: pdflatex -shell-escape paper. You can also just execute latexmk paper.

VSCode configuration

Currently, following extensions are recommended:

• LaTeX Workshop to support LaTeX in VSCode and
• LaTeX Utilities to enhance LaTeX Workshop
• LTeX+ to have a nice spell checker that also identifies grammar issues

Then, change the setting of LaTeX Workshop to use biber:

Press Shift+Ctrl+P to open the command palette. Then type "JSON" and select "Preferences: Open Settings (JSON)" to open settings.json.

Update the following lines in VSCode's settings.json to contain:

    "latex-workshop.latex.recipes": [
        {
            "name": "lualatex ➞ bibtex ➞ lualatex × 2 🔃",
            "tools": [
                "lualatex",
                "bibtex",
                "lualatex",
                "lualatex"
            ]
        },
    ],
    "latex-workshop.latex.tools": [
        // ...
        {
            "name": "bibtex",
            "command": "bibtex",
            "args": [
                "%DOCFILE%"
            ],
            "env": {}
        },
        // ...
    ],

The following settings are additionally recommended:

{
    "editor.wordWrap": "on",                              // enable soft line breaks
    "latex-workshop.view.pdf.viewer": "tab",              // display the generaded PDF in a separate tab
    "latex-workshop.view.pdf.backgroundColor": "#cccccc", // use a darker background in de PDF viewer to lift of the pages from it
    "latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run": "never",        // never automatically build; alternative: "onSave" (on saving .tex files)
    "editor.renderWhitespace": "all",                     // display all whitespaces
}

Alternatively, just copy and paste the contents of the vscode.settings.json file to your VSCode settings file.

You can manually trigger compilation by hitting the green button in the extension or using other methods provided by LaTeX Workshop.

Please remove the magic comments (% !TeX program ...) at the top of the main-....tex file. Although LaTeX-Workshop supports magic comments, it currently does not work reliably. Without the magic comments, compilation works.

LTeX+ tips and tricks

LTeX+ is an offline grammar and spell checker with support for LaTeX and Markdown.

Add a magic comment to your files to tell LTeX+ which language to use:

% LTeX: language=de-DE

If you want to use different languages in the text, use the \foreignlanguage{language}{text} command. LTeX+ will detect these elements and automatically switch the spell checker's language. For example:

\foreignlanguage{english}{Therefore, our proposed approach will change the world.}

Usage with docker

The generated Dockerfile is based on the Dockerfile by the Island of TeX.

docker run --rm -v "c:\users\example\latex-document:/workdir" ltg latexmk

Following one-time setup is required:

docker build -t ltg .

Contained Directories and Files

Directories

• figures Directory containing the figures. By using LuaLaTex/PDFLaTeX it is possible to use PDFs, JPGs, PNGs, ... We recommend to use PDFs to enable smooth scaling.

Files

• paper.tex - The main .tex file loading all LaTeX packages and their configurations.
  • Add text here
  • Adjust title etc. here
• bibliography.bib - Bibliography. biblatex format. Manage it with JabRef.
• abbreviations.tex - Acronyms and abbreviations.
• commands.tex - Example LaTeX macros.

Following additional files are included, which do not need to be adapted:

• localSettings.yaml - Settings for latexindent
• Makefile - The Makefile. Builds on latexmk.
• Texlivefile - List of packages required for a minimal TeXLive installation.

FAQs

Q: I have questions on the IEEEtran class itself.

The author of the class offers a large FAQ at http://www.michaelshell.org/tex/ieeetran/. Please read on there. The other possibility is to execute texdoc ieeetran and read in the documentation. For example, there is an explanation of how to typeset the affiliation information with four or more authors properly.

Q: How can I synchronize updates from the template to my repository?

1. Initialize your git repository as usual
2. Add this repository as git remote: git remote add template https://github.com/latextemplates/{template}.git
3. Merge the branch template/main into your main branch: git merge template/main.

After that you can use and push the main branch as usual. Notes on syncing with the upstream repository are available from GitHub.

Q: I get the error ! pdfTeX error (font expansion): auto expansion is only possible with scalable fonts.

Install the cm-super package using the MiKTeX package manager. Then, run initexmf --mkmaps on the command line. (Long description: https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/324972/9075)

Q: I get Package csquotes Error: Unbalanced groups or invalid nesting. What can I do?

A: You have activated \MakeOuterQuote{"} and used some special babel command to allow hyphenation at other places as a dash. One example is writing application"=specific. Now, you have to decide whether you want keep using plain quotes to enquote a word or use the special hyphenation command. In other words: Do you want "quote" and app\-lication\-specific or \enquote{quote} and application"=specific?

Note that this should not happen when the template is generated as the setting tweakouterquote ensures that these two options are mutually exclusive.

Q: I need more space. What can I do?

The most simple solution to get more space is to exchange the font.

Q: How can I reformat my .tex files?

Execute latexindent -l -s -sl -w paper.tex

Alternatively, execute make format.

Q: How I want to obey the one-sentence-per-line rule. How to do?

See "How can I reformat my .tex files?"

Q: I want to use minted, because I think its syntax highlighting seems to be better.

You can re-generate the template and choose minted as listings environment. Moreover, ensure that python and pygments are installed properly:

• choco install python
• pip install pygments

Q: Is it possible produce a self-archiving version?

Use the authorarchive package.

Q: Can I also write in German?

Yes. You can regenerate the template and choose "German" as language.

Q: ngerman-x-latest is reported missing

Install the package dehyph-exptl.

Q: I get ! I can't find file `clmr28t10+20'.

You seem to use latexmk locally. Please move _latexmkrc to latexmkrc to get latexmk working. If you don't do this, latexmk tries to execute latex, which tries to produce a DVI file (and not a PDF file).

Q: I get Font "LatinModernMath-Regular" not found.. What can I do?

Error message:

luaotfload | db : Reload initiated (formats: otf,ttf,ttc); reason: Font "LatinModernMath-Regular" not found.
luaotfload | resolve : sequence of 3 lookups yielded nothing appropriate.

! Package fontspec Error: The font "LatinModernMath-Regular" cannot be found.

Install the package lm-math manually.

Q: I get ! Package fontspec Error: The font "TeXGyreTermes" cannot be found.. What can I do?

Install the package tex-gyre and tex-gyre-math manually.

Q: I get ! error: (type 1): cannot find encoding file 'ntx-ot1-tlf.enc' for reading. What can I do?

See https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/240850/9075: Install the packages newpx and newtxsf manually.

Q: I get ! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=3000000].. What can I do?

Follow the steps at https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/548335/9075

Try with following command

lualatex -shell-escape --extra-mem-top=10000000 --synctex=1 paper.tex

See https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/124206/9075 for details.

Q: There is an output that biber/biblatex too old

See installation hints of how to update them at different systems.

Q: MiKTeX complains about missing .sty files.

Use the MiKTeX console to refresh the package index. Then, automatic installation should work again.

Q: I cannot get minted to run. There is this -shell-escape warning.

Please ensure that your compilation command includes -shell-escape. E.g., lualatex -shell-escape -synctex=1 main-minted-german.tex. When compiling main-minted-german.tex with TeXStudio, you will see a dialog warning about overriding the compilation command. Just answer "(a) allow for this document" and it will work.

Q: How to include Excel charts properly?

1. Select the Excel chart you want to use.
2. Print to PDF with the option "Print Selected Chart".
3. Remove empty space of the created PDF page with pdfcrop chart.pdf chart_cropped.pdf (install via MikTeX first, if not available; check via pdfcrop --version).
4. Use pdfscissors to crop the borders and title (maybe you have to allow https://sites.google.com in the Java security center in the control panel).
5. Include the PDF in LaTeX via \includegraphics{chart_cropped.pdf}.

Further information

• Other templates: https://latextemplates.github.io/
• For German users, go to https://texfragen.de/.
• Frank Mittelbach with Ulrike Fischer: The LaTeX Companion is the ultimate guide for LaTeX: The authors went through all packages offered by CTAN, selected the most promising ones, described them, and provide minimal working example for each of it.
• Lutz Hering, Heike Hering: How to Write Technial Reports, Springer, 2010; also available in German Technische Berichte - verständlich gliedern, gut gestalten, überzeugend vortragen. - Highly recommended, because it guides through all aspects of a report (such as a Master Thesis).
• Marcus Deininger et al.: Studienarbeiten - Ein Leitfaden zur Erstellung, Durchführung und Präsentation wissenschaftlicher Abschlussarbeiten am Beispiel Informatik, vdf. - Recommended as guideline for planning and working on the whole thesis.
• Charles Lipson, Cite Right, Second Edition: A Quick Guide to Citation Styles--MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and More, Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing, 2011. - Recommended in case you are unsure about how to correctly cite something.

License

The license of this work is 0BSD which corresponds to "public domain". Any derived work can freely be relicensed and can omit original copyright and license information.