LaTeX Conference Template Organizer

Overview

Transform messy conference LaTeX template .zip files into clean, Overleaf-ready submission templates. Official conference templates often contain excessive example content, instructional comments, and disorganized file structures. This skill converts them into templates ready for writing.

Working Mode

Analyze-then-confirm mode: First analyze issues and present them to the user, then execute cleanup after confirmation.

Complete Workflow

Receive .zip file
    ↓
1. Extract and analyze file structure
    ↓
2. Identify main file and dependencies
    ↓
3. Diagnose issues (present to user)
    ↓
4. Ask for conference info (link/name)
    ↓
5. Wait for user confirmation of cleanup plan
    ↓
6. Execute cleanup, create output directory
    ↓
7. Generate README (with official website info)
    ↓
8. Output complete

Step 1: Extract and Analyze

Extract Files

Extract .zip to a temporary directory:

unzip -q template.zip -d /tmp/latex-template-temp
cd /tmp/latex-template-temp
find . -type f -name "*.tex" -o -name "*.sty" -o -name "*.cls" -o -name "*.bib"

Identify File Types

Identify Main File

Common main file names:

• main.tex
• paper.tex
• document.tex
• sample-sigconf.tex
• template.tex

Identification methods:

1. Check if filename matches common patterns
2. Search for files containing \documentclass
3. If multiple candidates exist, ask user to confirm

# Find files containing \documentclass
grep -l "\\documentclass" *.tex

Step 2: Diagnose Issues

Present discovered issues to the user:

Disorganized File Structure

• Multi-level directory nesting
• .tex files scattered across directories
• Unclear which file is the main file

Redundant Content

Detect the following patterns and flag for cleanup:

• Filenames containing: sample, example, demo, test
• Comments containing: sample, example, template, delete this

Dependency Issues

• Referenced .sty/.cls files missing
• Image/table reference paths incorrect

Step 3: Ask for Conference Information

Ask the user for the following information:

Please provide the following information (optional):

1. **Conference submission link** (recommended): Used to extract official submission requirements
2. **Conference name**: If no link available
3. **Other special requirements**: Such as page limits, anonymity requirements, etc.

Step 4: Present Cleanup Plan

Present the cleanup plan to the user and wait for confirmation:

## Cleanup Plan

### Issues Found
- [List diagnosed issues]

### Cleanup Approach
1. Main file: main.tex (clean example content)
2. Section separation: text/ directory
3. Resource directories: figures/, tables/, styles/

### Output Structure
[Show output directory structure]

Confirm execution? [Y/n]

Step 5: Execute Cleanup

Create Output Directory Structure

mkdir -p output/{text,figures,tables,styles}

Clean Up Main File (main.tex)

Keep:

• \documentclass declaration
• Required package imports
• Core configuration (e.g., anonymous mode)

Remove:

• Example section content
• Verbose instructional comments
• Example author/title information

Add:

• Import sections with \input{text/XX-section}

Example main.tex structure (ACM template standard format):

\documentclass[...]{...}  % Keep original template document class

% Required packages (keep original template package declarations)

%% ============================================================================
%% Preamble: Before \begin{document}
%% ============================================================================

%% Title and author information
\title{Your Paper Title}
\author{Author Name}
\affiliation{...}

%% Abstract (in preamble, before \maketitle)
\begin{abstract}
% TODO: Write abstract content
\end{abstract}

%% CCS Concepts and Keywords (in preamble)
\begin{CCSXML}
<ccs2012>
   <concept>
       <concept_id>10010405.10010444.10010447</concept_id>
       <concept_desc>Applied computing~...</concept_desc>
       <concept_significance>500</concept_significance>
   </concept>
</ccs2012>
\end{CCSXML}

\ccsdesc[500]{Applied computing~...}
\keywords{keyword1, keyword2, keyword3}

%% ============================================================================
%% Document Body
%% ============================================================================
\begin{document}

\maketitle

%% Section content (imported from text/)
\input{text/01-introduction}
\input{text/02-related-work}
\input{text/03-method}
\input{text/04-experiments}
\input{text/05-conclusion}

\bibliographystyle{...}
\bibliography{references}

\end{document}

KDD 2026 Anonymous Submission Special Configuration

For KDD 2026 (using ACM acmart template), add the nonacm option to the document class to remove footnotes:

%% ============================================================================
%% Document Class - KDD 2026 Anonymous Submission Configuration
%% Submission version: \documentclass[sigconf,anonymous,review,nonacm]{acmart}
%% Camera-ready: \documentclass[sigconf]{acmart}
%% ============================================================================
\documentclass[sigconf,anonymous,review,nonacm]{acmart}

%% ============================================================================
%% Disable ACM metadata (submission version only)
%% ============================================================================
\settopmatter{printacmref=false}  % Disable ACM Reference Format
\setcopyright{none}               % Disable copyright notice
\acmConference[]{}{}{}            % Clear conference info (removes footnote)
\acmYear{}                        % Clear year
\acmISBN{}                        % Clear ISBN
\acmDOI{}                         % Clear DOI

%% Content to restore for camera-ready version:
%% \acmConference[KDD '26]{Proceedings of the 30th ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining}{August 09--13, 2026}{Jeju, Korea}
%% \acmISBN{978-1-4503-XXXX-X/26/08}
%% \acmDOI{10.1145/nnnnnnn.nnnnnnn}

Create Section Files (text/)

Create independent .tex files for each section, containing only section content without \begin{document} etc.:

text/01-introduction.tex:

\section{Introduction}
% TODO: Write introduction content

text/02-related-work.tex:

\section{Related Work}
% TODO: Write related work content

text/03-method.tex:

\section{Method}
% TODO: Write method content

text/04-experiments.tex:

\section{Experiments}
% TODO: Write experiments content

text/05-conclusion.tex:

\section{Conclusion}
% TODO: Write conclusion content

Important notes:

• Abstract should be placed in main.tex preamble (before \begin{document}), after \maketitle
• Files in text/ contain only sections, starting with \section{...}
• Do not include \begin{document} or other wrappers in text/ files

Copy Style Files (styles/)

Copy all .sty and .cls files from the original template to styles/:

find /tmp/latex-template-temp -type f \( -name "*.sty" -o -name "*.cls" \) -exec cp {} output/styles/ \;

Note: Maintain the original template's directory structure (e.g., acmart/), only move to styles/.

Handle Images and Tables

# Copy image files
find /tmp/latex-template-temp -type f \( -name "*.png" -o -name "*.jpg" -o -name "*.jpeg" -o -name "*.pdf" \) -exec cp {} output/figures/ \;

# Copy table files (if any)
find /tmp/latex-template-temp -type f -name "*.tex" | grep -i table | while read f; do cp "$f" output/tables/; done

Create Example Table File

Important: Overleaf automatically deletes empty directories. To prevent the tables/ directory from being deleted, create an example table file:

# Create example table file
cat > output/tables/example-table.tex << 'EOF'
% Example table file
% Can be deleted or replaced with your own tables

\begin{table}[h]
    \centering
    \caption{Example Table}
    \label{tab:example}
    \begin{tabular}{lccc}
        \toprule
        Method & Metric 1 & Metric 2 & Metric 3 \\
        \midrule
        Baseline & 85.3 & 12.4 & 0.92 \\
        Method A & 87.1 & 11.8 & 0.95 \\
        \textbf{Ours} & \textbf{89.4} & \textbf{10.2} & \textbf{0.97} \\
        \bottomrule
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}
EOF

Notes:

• If the original template already has table files, this step can be skipped
• The example table is only to prevent directory deletion; it can be deleted or replaced
• Reference tables in the paper using \input{tables/example-table.tex} or copy table content directly into section files

Copy Bibliography

# Copy .bib files
find /tmp/latex-template-temp -type f -name "*.bib" -exec cp {} output/ \;

Step 6: Generate README

Information Source Priority

1. Conference link provided by user → Extract using WebFetch
2. Template file comments → Extract from .tex files
3. Default inference → Infer from \documentclass

README Template

# [Conference Name] Submission Template

## Template Information
- **Conference**: [Conference name]
- **Website**: [Conference link]
- **Template version**: [From template or website]
- **Document class**: [Extracted documentclass]

## Submission Requirements

### Page and Format
- **Page limit**: [From website or template]
- **Two-column/Single-column**: [Detect layout]
- **Font size**: [10pt/11pt etc.]

### Anonymity Requirements
- **Blind review required**: [Detect template mode]
- **Author information handling**: [Instructions]

### Compilation Requirements
- **Recommended compiler**: [XeLaTeX/pdfLaTeX/LuaLaTeX]
- **Special package requirements**: [If any]

## Overleaf Usage

### Upload Steps
1. Create a new project on Overleaf
2. Upload the entire `output/` directory
3. Set compiler to [specified compiler]
4. Click Recompile to test

### File Description
- `main.tex` - Main file, start here
- `text/` - Section content, edit as needed
- `figures/` - Place images here
- `tables/` - Place tables here
- `styles/` - Style files, no modification needed
- `references.bib` - Bibliography database

## Common Operations

### Adding Images
```latex
\begin{figure}[h]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{figures/your-image.pdf}
    \caption{Image caption}
    \label{fig:your-label}
\end{figure}

Adding Tables

\begin{table}[h]
    \centering
    \begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
        \hline
        Column 1 & Column 2 \\
        \hline
        Content 1 & Content 2 \\
        \hline
    \end{tabular}
    \caption{Table caption}
    \label{tab:your-label}
\end{table}

Adding References

Add entries to references.bib and cite in text using \cite{key}.

Notes

• [Warnings extracted from template comments]
• [Important notes extracted from website]

### Extract Information from Website (if user provided a link)

Use WebFetch to get conference submission page content and extract:
- Page limits
- Anonymity requirements
- Format requirements
- Submission deadlines

## Step 7: Cleanup and Output

```bash
# Clean up temporary files
rm -rf /tmp/latex-template-temp

# Output completion message
echo "Template cleanup complete! Output directory: output/"
echo "Please upload the output/ directory to Overleaf to test compilation."

Error Handling

Common Conference Template Types

KDD Anonymous Submission Configuration Notes

KDD 2026 uses the ACM acmart template and requires special configuration for anonymous submission:

Submission version (remove all ACM metadata footnotes):

\documentclass[sigconf,anonymous,review,nonacm]{acmart}
\settopmatter{printacmref=false}
\setcopyright{none}
\acmConference[]{}{}{}
\acmYear{}
\acmISBN{}
\acmDOI{}

Camera-ready version (restore ACM metadata):

\documentclass[sigconf]{acmart}
\settopmatter{printacmref=true}
\setcopyright{acmcopyright}
\acmConference[KDD '26]{...}{...}{...}
\acmYear{2026}
\acmISBN{978-1-4503-XXXX-X/26/08}
\acmDOI{10.1145/nnnnnnn.nnnnnnn}

Quick Reference

Detect Document Type

# Detect document class
grep "\\documentclass" main.tex

# Detect anonymous mode
grep -i "anonymous\|review\|blind" main.tex

# Detect page settings
grep "pagelimit\|pageLimit\|page_limit" main.tex

Common Cleanup Patterns

# Remove example files
rm -f sample-* example-* demo-* test-*

# Remove temporary files
rm -f *.aux *.log *.out *.bbl *.blg