TUGboat styles and information

The TUGboat macros are included in all major TeX distributions, so most likely you don't have to do anything to install them. If you need or want the latest, it's available on CTAN, see below.

Upcoming submission deadlines

• regular issue (34:1): March 1, 2013.
• regular issue (34:2): July 8, 2013.
• TUG'13 proceedings (34:3): November 4, 2013.
• regular issue (35:1): March 1, 2014.

Article template

This sample article template also includes a super-summary of some of the most commonly used features of the TUGboat style.

Quick tips for authors

• Please keep source lines to <= 79 characters.
• Even today, 7-bit ASCII is by far the most reliable encoding for the source text. TeX control sequences are preferred to UTF-8 or Latin N characters.
• The TUGboat style files have many predefined abbreviations; please use them. See samples below.
• Use \acro{WORD} for other words in ALL CAPS.
• Use \cs{foo} to output the control sequence \foo.
• Use \Dash instead of --- (and surrounding spaces).
• Footnotes after punctuation.
• Best to avoid footnotes altogether. They complicate page breaking and can disturb reading flow. References, especially, are better put in a bibliography. Abbreviations are better as a parenthetical remark. (“Don't use footnotes in your books, Don.” —Jill Knuth.)
• Write an abstract. Don't include bibliography references in the abstract.
• Do not worry about figure placement, page breaks, column breaks, etc., because they will almost certainly change during editing.
• TUGboat is produced entirely with pdf files now, so do not worry about dvi output, eps format for figures, etc. (Although if dvi output is needed for your paper, that's fine.)
• Do not use the word “really”.

General advice on content

• Consider the topic from the point of view of an interested reader: if you weren't the author, what would you like to learn from the article?
• The length of an article should depend on the topic. The article should cover the chosen ground completely, leaving no major questions unanswered, but it should do so concisely. Shorter articles are more likely to be read. When in doubt, shoot for five pages or less.
• Don't worry overmuch about deadlines; there will always be another issue. It's better to take enough time to do the best job than hurry anything along.
• If illustrations will aid comprehension, include them.
• Illustrations that truly require color can be printed in color. However, color pages are of course much more expensive to print. So when color is not required, please check that your images degrade ok in black and white. (Color versions can be posted on the web.)
• If you have questions, just ask. That's what editors are for.

Contact for questions, problems, bugs, …

TUGboat macros on CTAN

Both the plain and LaTeX TUGboat macros are included in TeX Live and MiKTeX, among other distributions, so you almost certainly have them installed already if you have TeX at all. But in case you want to check the latest versions, or just peruse …

On CTAN, plain TeX macros and user documentation are located in
/tex-archive/macros/plain/contrib: browse, zip.

LaTeX macros and user documentation are located in
/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/tugboat: browse, zip.

You must process tugboat.ins with LaTeX. This will unpack the files ltugboat.cls and others for your use. Documentation is contained in the same directory as the macros, in the file ltubguid.ltx (and PDF).

A ConTeXt style for TUGboat is available on request.