Quick start for modern LaTeXing for an IEEE conference, based on the Manuscript Template for Conference Proceedings.

The official template is distributed via CTAN as the IEEEtran package, which is actively maintained. However, de-facto configurations (hyperref) and modern features of latex (microtype) are not configured. This page does it.

This template is for the computer science conferences. It is based on the bare_conf_compsoc.tex distributed by IEEE. In case you need other configurations, please adapt paper-conference.tex or paper-conference-compsoc.tex.

Examples:

• paper-conference.pdf - regular conference paper.
• paper-conference-minted.pdf - conference paper showing minted in action.
• paper-conference-compsoc.pdf - papers for IEEE Computer Society conference papers.

Some conferences distribute a IEEEtran.cls V1.7a dated 2007 and a parameter compsocconf. The parameter compsocconf was NEVER included in Michael Shell's IEEEtran.cls file. It is unclear, who did this patch and why it is around in the wild.

The most recent version is V1.8b and automatically distributed over CTAN, because it is actively maintained by Michael Shell at http://www.michaelshell.org/tex/ieeetran/. A full changelog is available at http://mirror.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/IEEEtran/changelog.txt.

 2014/09/17 V1.8a (MDS) changes:

 1) Extensive rework of the compsoc mode to comply with the latest standards
    of the IEEE Computer Society.

The class parameter compsocconf never existed officially. One has to use conference, compsoc, because the parameters are "orthogonal": Either "conference" or "journal", either "compsoc" or not. With a modern IEEEtran.cls, you'll get

LaTeX Warning: Unused global option(s):
    [compsocconf].

When using the 2007 version or the most recent version with (the unhandled) compsocconf, you'll get paper-conference.pdf instead of paper-conference-compsoc.pdf. That differs significantly in the style used for section headings.

IEEE distributes their templates at https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html. With the update of July 2017, the archive https://www.ieee.org/documents/ieee-latex-conference-template.zip contains both bare_conf.tex and bare_conf_compsoc.tex. Thus, the conference should state which option to use.

All in all, the distributions of IEEEtran from 2007 are roughly equivalent to \documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran} (and version V1.8b), which does not comply with IEEE's rules for computer science conferences, because the compsoc option is missing.

Hence, double check with your conference whether you have to use compsoc or not.

Statement from IEEE:

Please note that, as stated on the webpage https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html. "IEEE does not require a specific format for their conference articles". Thus, we dot not purport that the "compsoc" is a requirement for publishing conference papers with us.

• Features
• Quick start
• Tool hints
• Using the template with your git repository
• FAQ
• Links

• Provides skeletal paper-conference.tex and paper-conference-compsoc.tex files.
• Generated PDF allows for copy and paste of text without getting words with ligatures such as "workflow" destroyed. This is enabled by the cmap package, which encodes ligatures (such as fl) using unicode characters.
• Support of hyperlinked references without extra color thanx to hyperref.
• Better breaking of long URLs.
• Support for \powerset command.
• Support todos as pdf annotations. This is enabled by the pdfcomment package.
• microtypographic extensions for a better look of the paper.
• Adds modern packages such as microtype, cleveref, csquotes, booktabs, paralist, hyperref, hypcap, upquote.
• Shows how IEEE copyright notice can be added.
• Optional: Support for minted package. Prepared in paper-conference-minted.tex.
• Ready-to-go configuration for latexindent.

• Click on Download ZIP or here.
• Extract master.zip in the folder where you want to write your paper.
• In case you are working in the computer science field: Edit paper-conference-compsoc.tex.
• In case you are NOT working in the computer science field: Edit paper-conference.tex.
• latexmk paper-conference-compsoc OR latexmk paper-conference.

There is currently no official biblatex support. A first step towards that is done at the biblatex-ieee package.

MiKTeX installation hints are given at https://github.com/latextemplates/scientific-thesis-template/blob/template/README.md#installation-hints-for-windows.

• Grammar and spell checking is available at TeXstudio. Please download LanguageTool (Windows: choco install languagetool) and configure TeXstudio to use it. Note that it is enough to point to languagetool.jar. If TeXstudio doesn't fit your need, check the list of all available LaTeX Editors.
• Use JabRef to manage your bibliography (Windows: choco install jabref).

In case you want to get started using minted, do following steps:

1. Install python: choco install python - that uses chocolatey to install Python
2. Install pygments: pip instal pygments - that uses the Pyhton package manager to install the pygments library
3. When latexing, use -shell-escape: pdflatex -shell-escape paper. You can also just execute latexmk paper.

1. Initialize your git repository as usual
2. Add this repository as upstream: git remote add upstream https://github.com/latextemplates/IEEE.git
3. Merge the branch upstream/master into your master branch: git merge upstream/master.

After that you can use and push the master branch as usual. Notes on syncing with the upstream repository are available from GitHub.

Install the cm-super package using the MiKTeX package manager. Then, run initexmf --mkmaps on the command line. (Long description: http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/324972/9075)

The author of the class offers a large FAQ at http://www.michaelshell.org/tex/ieeetran/. Please read on there.

Execute latexindent -l -s -sl -w paper.tex

Execute latexindent -m -l -s -sl -w paper.tex. Attention! This is work in progress and does not always produce best results.

• German: Hinweise zu Ausarbeitungen: http://wiki.flupp.de/studium/ausarbeitungen
• Other templates: http://latextemplates.github.io/