LaTeX issues
Use The IFAC style class and the Harvard bibliography style
The easiest way to write a properly formatted paper is to use the
ifacmtg.cls LaTeX 2e class, with the default 10pt, double
column style. You will also need the harvard.sty and
harvard.bst packages for the bibliographical
citations.
Use English hyphenation patterns
Make sure you are using hyphenation patterns for English. If you are
not sure, include the english option in the
documentclass command.
Include figures as Embedded PostScript files
Use embedded PostScript (eps) for your figures (you can use the
graphicx or epsfig packages for this
purpose). Check the size of your eps files and, if they are too big
(this often happens with photographs) try to reduce their size with
your favourite image processing software.
Most LaTeX installations use the Computer Modern Fonts, designed by
Donald Knuth. These fonts are usually converted to bitmaps by the
dvips utility, which produces good quality prints on most
printers, but render poorly on computer screens.
We advise you to use only the standard PostScript fonts with type 1
encoding. An easy way to do this is to insert the following lines in
the header section of your LaTeX file (i.e. before
\begin{document}):
\usepackage{times,mathptmx}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{textcomp}
The times and mathptmx packages specify
the times font family to be used for normal and math text
(\textrm in LaTeX terms). You may wish to include also
the helvet and courier in order to use
helvetica and courier for sans-serif
(\textsf) and typewriter (\texttt) text.
The same effect can be obtained by processing the LaTeX file with the
command
pslatex file
instead of the usual latex file. Notice that
pslatex is not available for all platforms.
The recommended procedure is to first generate
a PostScript (.ps) file, and then convert it to
PDF with
Acrobat Distiller or
GhostScript. If you cannot produce a suitable PDF file, we
recommend you to submit the PostScript file.
The standard way to produce a PostScript file from a LaTeX
manuscript is to use the dvips command:
dvips file[.dvi]
If you have included the times package in your source
file, you will get PostScript type 1 fonts in your .ps file, as
required.
You can convert ps files to pdf in either of the following ways:
- The best way to generate PDF files is to use the full Adobe Acrobat
software package, which includes Acrobat Distiller, a tool for
producing PDF files from PostScript files.
You should configure the Distiller to embed and subset all fonts (set
threshold level to 100%). Make sure that your
generate code for Acrobat 3 (PDF 1.2)
Adobe Acrobat is a proprietary product, and it may not be available
for your platform. If you cannot produce a PDF file in this
way, you are advised to submit your paper in PostScript format.
- Ghostscript can convert
PS files to PDF. In Windows, choose
- file -> convert
In GNU/Linux and Unix platforms, use the command:
- ps2pdf -s papersize=a4 file.ps
Notice that this may not work well on some platforms or with some
versions of the PostScript type 1 fonts.
- There are various sites on the worldwide web that offer free conversion
to pdf.Ps2pdf.com at www.ps2pdf.com
converts postscript files to pdf.
You can generate a .pdf file instead of a .dvi file by processing
your LaTeX file with pdftex:
pdflatex file.tex
This method gives excellent quality PDF files. However, EPS figures
may not be included (you can convert them to PDF or JPEG), and it may
not work well with the ifacmtg class. The same applies
to the dvipdfm driver. We advise you to
always generate a PostScript file and either submit
it directly or convert it to PDF using one of the
above methods.
Where to get the tools
You can download the ifacmtg class and the
harvard package, as well as an example LaTeX file, from
the tool repository on this
site, or from any CTAN site.
The times and mathptmx packages are part of the
psnfss bundle, which can be downloaded from the same sites
(tool repository or
CTAN ).
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