This information will help you to prepare your work for submission to a SIGGRAPH-sponsored event, for both the review process and for the final submission, should your work be accepted for presentation.

The ACM Article Template

To ensure all ACM publications have a consistent look and feel, ACM has developed a template, one for LaTeX and one for Microsoft Word, to be used in the preparation of your work. While there are some variations for specific publications and communities, this template is your starting point to prepare your documentation.

If you are using LaTeX – either locally or through Overleaf – you can prepare a variety of possible documents, from a two-page abstract to a full-length conference proceedings paper or journal article. The only differences are the document style and the length of the document.

Here are some commonly used document styles – this is a parameter to the \documentclass command – \documentclass[style]{acmart} where style is one of the following:

• acmtog – this is used for full-length technical papers submitted to the SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers program – both the “journal” and “conference” tracks.
• acmsmall – this is used for submissions to the PACMCGIT journal publication.
• sigconf – this is used for conference proceedings papers, and abstracts. The majority of programs at SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia use this template style.
• manuscript – this is used for initial submission and produces an easy-to-read single column document as output.

Download links:

The ACM article template can be used from within Overleaf, or locally.

• Overleaf template
• LaTeX template for local use

If you are preparing a submission to the SIGGRAPH or SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers program, this template is set up for an anonymized version – see the “Submission in a Nutshell” section, below, for more information on this:

• anonymized Technical Papers template

If you are using Microsoft Word, you need to use the provided submission and master templates, and when your document is delivered to TAPS (see below) for processing, the appropriate template style will be used to prepare the PDF and HTML versions of your document for publication.

Download links:

• Windows/Macintosh Submission Template
• Windows Master Template
• Macintosh “Office 2016 / Office 365” Master Template

Please find several examples, most with source materials, of the ACM article template and the resulting PDF output.

• LaTeX full-length paper, using the “sigconf” template style: [ZIP] and [PDF]
• LaTeX full-length paper, using the “acmtog” template style: [PDF]
• LaTeX full-length paper, using the “manuscript” template style: [PDF]
• LaTeX two-page abstract, using the “sigconf” template style: [ZIP] and [PDF]
• Microsoft Word full-length paper, using the “sigconf” style: [Word] and [PDF]

With one major exception, SIGGRAPH follows ACM guidelines for initial submission: authors should prepare a single-column document in Microsoft Word or LaTeX (in LaTeX, use the “manuscript” template style) and print that document to a PDF for the initial submission to a sponsored event.

The exception is the initial submission to the SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers program. Here, authors must prepare a fully-formatted technical paper for review, using LaTeX and these specific commands:

• \documentclass[acmtog,anonymous,review]{acmtog}
• \acmSubmissionID{paperID}

where paperID is the submission ID provided by Linklings (conference submission system).

ACM SIGGRAPH uses the “author year” style for citations and references, not the “numbered” style. Unless specifically told to use “numbered” citations and references – this happens only when an event is co-sponsored by SIGGRAPH and another SIG and the organizers prefer the “numbered” style – authors must use the “author year” style.

• In LaTeX, add \citestyle{acmauthoryear} to the preamble of your source document.
• In Microsoft Word, select the “author year” option – 2 – when preparing your document. (See the TAPS documentation, below, for more information on this matter.)

 If your event requires the “numbered” citation and reference style – this happens, occasionally, when an event is co-sponsored by SIGGRAPH and SIGCHI:

• In LaTeX, do not include \citestyle{acmauthoryear} to the preamble of your source document; the “numbered” style is the default.
• In Microsoft Word, select the “numbered” option – 1 – when preparing your document.

TAPS is ACM’s system for generating fully-formatted PDF and HTML versions of an author’s source material, prepared in either LaTeX or Microsoft Word.

TAPS is used for nearly all programs at SIGGRAPH-sponsored conferences, and is also used for PACMCGIT issues. 

At this time (early 2025) TAPS is not used for the SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers Program’s Journal track (though it is used for the Conference Papers track). It is also not used for conference programs for which the author is not specifically directed to prepare a two-page abstract of their work – the SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia Computer Animation Festival and Art Gallery programs are two such examples.

Information about TAPS can be found at

https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~spencer/taps/index.html.

You must complete the ACM Rights Form for your work after it is accepted for presentation. This is a prerequisite for presentation and publication. The rights text that is added to your documentation is generated from the rights choices you make on this form.

When completing the ACM Rights Form, it’s very important to keep this in mind:

ACM requires that the information for each author and paper title on the ACM Rights Form precisely match what is on the final version of your paper. The information includes each author’s name, each author’s affiliation, each author’s email address, and the order of the authors on your paper. For Proceedings, Conferences, and Journal publications, the edit screen allows the corresponding author to make any updates to the author information and the paper title to match what is on your final paper.

Adding authors after acceptance is not allowed, and the information from the rights form will be used to render the title / author / affiliation information on the PDF and HTML versions of your work in TAPS.

If you are using LaTeX, you are provided with the appropriate rights commands to add to your document’s source. If you are using Microsoft Word, the appropriate rights text is added to the generated PDF and HTML versions of your document in TAPS.

If the corresponding author of your ACM work is affiliated with an institution that is a part of the ACM OPEN program, the article processing charge for the work is waived. Information about the ACM OPEN program is available at https://libraries.acm.org/subscriptions-access/acmopen.

If you are using in any material in your documentation or in your presentation that you or your co-authors did not create, you must identify that material:

• On the rights form
• In the documentation of your work

You must also provide documentation of your ability to use this material. Based on the way in which the material is made available, you may need to do one of the following things:

• Obtain permission to use it from the owner, and provide documentation of that permission on the rights form.
• identify it as public-domain or appropriately CC-licensed, and provide documentation that supports this.

At the risk of stating the obvious, just because something is available online does not necessarily mean that you can use it without obtaining the permission of the owner of that material. 

Material in the public domain must be identified on the rights form and in your ACM work; there’s no exception to this requirement for public-domain material.

Of special note is Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons: these sites cannot be used as the source for third-party material. Anyone is able to make material available there, regardless of whether they’re the owner or not. Material made available there almost always comes from somewhere else, and that “somewhere else” is documented on the Wikipedia page; it is your responsibility to use the authoritative source for that material, making sure you can use it in your ACM work.

More information on the proper handling of third-party material can be found at https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/third-party-material.

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