This guide has been written in order to provide assistance to authors submitting papers to IFAC meetings. Using this guide you will be able to prepare your paper in the appropriate form for inclusion in the event Proceedings. The pdf version of this guide can be downloaded as part the Resources below.
Proceedings of IFAC meetings are published online in the IFAC-PapersOnLine series, hosted on the Elsevier ScienceDirect service, which provides open access to the full text of all reviewed papers presented at IFAC events.
All papers submitted to IFAC technical meetings must be in English and must comply with the IFAC paper layout. The material submitted for presentation at IFAC meetings must be original, not published or being considered for publication elsewhere. Full responsibility for the paper rests with the author, who must have taken the necessary steps to obtain permission to use any material that might be protected by copyright. The authors must grant exclusive publishing rights to IFAC under a CC-BY-NC-ND Creative Commons license at the time of the final submission.
The PaperPlaza Conference Manuscript Management System is used by IFAC to manage paper submissions to all IFAC events. Every participant in a conference is served by the site. The system allows users to:
- submit their contributions to any event of their choice,
- inspect the reviews and final decision letter of the submission,
- resubmit the final version of a submission, and
- upload comments if the user acts as a reviewer.
Templates and support
The simplest way to get the proper format for your paper is to use one of the templates available in the Resources & Downloads section below. Templates for LaTeX and Microsoft Word are available. If you want to use another text processor, please refer to the detailed format specifications and make sure that your file complies with them.
Preparing papers using Latex
The LaTeX template package includes:
- The ifacconf.cls class style file for papers.
- The ifacconf.tex sample paper file.
- The ifacconf.bst bibliography style file.
- Some auxiliary files.
You should have installed an appropriate distribution of LaTeX on your computer before you start using the IFAC LaTeX package. Some well-known examples are MikTex for Microsoft Windows, Tex Live for Linux systems, and MacTex for Mac OS X.
Make sure that your installation uses Type 1 fonts. Older versions of LaTeX used Type 3 (bitmapped) fonts. These fonts are not scalable and may render improperly on the screen or print.
The LaTeX engine should be configured to produce PDF files on A4 paper size. The pdflatex command is the best way to produce PDF files with the right format using the provided template.
Preparing papers using Microsoft Word
The MS Word paper template package includes:
- The ifacconf.dotx template file.
- The ifacconf.docx sample paper file that can also be used as a template.
- The ifac_sample_office.pdf sample paper file.
You should compose your file using the template and then use the “Save as …” command to save it as a PDF file.
IFAC Paper style and layout
All papers submitted to IFAC technical meetings must comply with the IFAC paper layout. A summary of the main layout characteristics follows.
Paper length and file size
Regular papers must be between 4 (minimum) and 6 (maximum) pages in the final version. Check the conference site for special rules that may apply. PDF files will be limited to 2 MB in size.
Page size and margins
- A4 paper (210 ´ 297 mm)
- Margins:
- First page: top 35 mm, bottom 25 mm, left/right 15 mm.
- Other pages: top 25 mm, bottom 25 mm, left/right 15 mm.
- Main text is two columns, with a 5 mm gap between columns.
- No headers, footers, or page numbers.
Title page
The title page must contain the following items, centred on the page with a left and right margin of 30 mm (i.e. a maximum width of 150 mm):
- Title, with a maximum of 10 words, 14 pt Times boldface.
- Author names, 10 pt Times boldface.
- Author affiliations, 10 pt Times italic.
- An abstract with 50–100 words.
- A list of 5–10 keywords.
The abstract and keywords should be separated from the previous and following text by a pair of full width (150 mm) horizontal lines and an 8 pt vertical space.
The rest of the title page is body text, formatted in two columns as detailed below.
Text format
- Times Roman 10 pt, or equivalent font, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
- All paragraphs must be justified, if possible.
- Single line spacing.
- The first line of a paragraph should not be indented.
- 8 pt additional vertical space between paragraphs.
- Avoid hyphenation at the end of a line.
Section headings
- Section headings must be centred, in capital letters, and numbered consecutively, starting with 1.
- Sub-section headings should be in capital and lower-case italic letters, numbered 1.1, 1.2, etc, and left justified, with second and subsequent lines indented.
Tables
- All tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals.
- Headings should be placed above tables, underlined and centred.
- Leave one line space between the heading and the table.
Illustrations
- All photographs, schemas, graphs and diagrams are to be referred to as figures.
- Lettering and symbols should be clearly defined either in the caption or in a legend provided as part of the figure.
- Figures should be placed at the top or bottom of a column wherever possible, as close as possible to the first reference to them in the paper.
- Figures should be restricted to single-column width unless this would make them illegible.
- The figure number and caption should be typed below the illustration, left justified, with subsequent lines indented.
Equations
- Equations should be numbered with Arabic numerals.
- SI units should be used for physical magnitudes. All non-standard abbreviations or symbols must be defined when first mentioned, or a glossary provided.
References
- In the text the surname of the author and the year of publication of the reference should be given.
- Two or more references by the same authors published in the same year should be differentiated by letters a,b,c etc.
- For references with more than two authors, text citations should be shortened to the first name followed by et al.
- Only essential references, which are directly referred to in the text, should be included in the reference list.
- References must be listed in alphabetical order at the end of the paper. References to the same author(s) should be in chronological order.
- Journal references should include:
- author’s surname and initials;
- initials and surnames of remaining authors;
- year of publication (in brackets);
- article title (where provided);
- abbreviated journal title (in italics);
- volume number and page numbers.
- References to books should include:
- author’s surname and initials;
- initials and surnames of remaining authors;
- year of publication (in brackets);
- book title (in italics);
- name of the publisher and place of publication.
- References to multi-author works should include after the year of publication:
- chapter title (where provided);
- “In:” followed by book title (in italics);
- initials and name(s) of editors(s) in brackets;
- volume number and pages;
- name of the publisher and place of publication.
PDF Specifications
PDF (Portable Document Format) is an open standard, developed by Adobe Systems, which has become the preferred format for electronic publishing on the Internet. PDF enables documents to be stored in a platform and device independent format, ensuring that the appearance of the document is the same when read on different computer systems. PDF documents can be read on a variety of freely available viewers, including Adobe Reader, Foxit Reader and Apple Preview, among others,
PDF has evolved with time, and different versions of the standard have been produced. Furthermore, there are optional settings that may affect portability, and some of the enhanced characteristics that have been added to the basic PDF format can make it difficult to read PDF files on some computer platforms. In order to ensure that the paper files stored in the IFAC PapersOnLine site can be read with the highest quality on all computer platforms, and that IFAC papers can be efficiently searched, PDF files containing papers submitted to IFAC meetings are required to comply with a set of specifications, which are listed below. Some PDF characteristics are required for the file to be published in IFAC PapersOnLine, while others are recommended for best quality presentation.
Required PDF file properties
- A4 paper size (210 ´ 297 mm).
- PDF version 1.4 (Acrobat 5) or PDF/A.
- All fonts must be embedded in the file. Subsetting fonts is recommended.
This also applies to so-called base 14 fonts (Times, Helvetica, Courier, Symbol and ZapfDingbats) or their equivalent (Times New Roman, Arial, Courier New, etc.). - Only scalable fonts can be accepted. Type 3 (bitmap) fonts are not allowed.
- Fonts that require non-English language support (e.g. CJK fonts) are not allowed.
- The file must contain searchable text. Scanned files are not acceptable.
- The document must not have any password protection.
- The document must not have any links or bookmarks..
Recommended PDF properties
- Subset all fonts if less than a 100% of the characters are used.
- The file should be optimized for a faster viewing on the web.
- The print Resolution should be set to 600 dpi.
- Color/Grayscale Images: Bicubic Downsampling at 300dpi.
- Compression for Color Images: JPEG/Medium Quality.
- Monochrome Images: Bicubic Downsampling at 600dpi.
- Compression for Monochrome Images: CCITT Group 4.
- Compress Text and Line Art: Yes.
The file settings can be checked by opening the “Document properties” window in Adobe Reader®.
IFAC License Agreement
The IFAC License Agreement can be downloaded below as part of the resources.
