ACM paper template (acmart)

acmart is ACM's single class for all of its publications. It is maintained by Boris Veytsman and distributed on CTAN as the acmart package, which also carries the ACM-Reference-Format bibliography style. New versions come out several times a year, so if a call says to use the latest one, update your TeX distribution or take the class from CTAN.

Minimal skeleton

Save your references as references.bib in the same folder. This compiles with pdfLaTeX followed by BibTeX. The class loads its own fonts and hyperref, so you do not need to.

Download the starter (.zip) main.tex, references.bib and a README. Compiles as is. Writing on a Mac? Open the folder in ModernTex.

\documentclass[sigconf,review,anonymous]{acmart}

% Filled in from the ACM rights form at camera-ready time:
% \setcopyright{...}
% \acmConference[ACRONYM '26]{Full Conference Name}{Month Days, Year}{City, Country}
% \acmDOI{...}
% \acmISBN{...}

\acmSubmissionID{123}

\begin{document}

\title{Paper Title}

\author{First Author}
\affiliation{%
  \institution{University}
  \city{City}
  \country{Country}}
\email{first@example.edu}

\author{Second Author}
\affiliation{%
  \institution{Company}
  \city{City}
  \country{Country}}
\email{second@example.com}

\begin{abstract}
One paragraph that states the problem, the method, and the result.
\end{abstract}

\ccsdesc[500]{Security and privacy}

\keywords{first keyword, second keyword}

\maketitle

\section{Introduction}
Text with a citation~\cite{example}.

\begin{acks}
Funding and thanks go here. The anonymous option hides this block.
\end{acks}

\bibliographystyle{ACM-Reference-Format}
\bibliography{references}

\end{document}

With anonymous on, the PDF shows "Anonymous Author(s)" and the submission ID instead of the author block, and the acknowledgments are left out. Remove review,anonymous for the camera-ready version.

Key options

• sigconf: the two-column format for most ACM conference proceedings.
• acmsmall: the single-column format for most ACM journals, including conferences that publish in a PACM journal. Other formats exist for particular venues, such as sigplan and acmtog; with no format option you get manuscript, a single-column draft.
• review: adds line numbers and page numbers for reviewers.
• anonymous: hides the author names, affiliations and emails, leaves the author out of the PDF metadata, suppresses the acks environment, and prints the ID set with \acmSubmissionID.
• nonacm: removes ACM-specific material such as the reference-format block and the copyright box, for a preprint or a document that is not an ACM publication.
• screen: colored links, for a version meant to be read on screen.
• \citestyle{acmauthoryear}: switches from the default numeric citations to author-year, for venues that ask for it.
• \setcopyright, \acmConference, \acmDOI, \acmISBN: rights and publication details. At submission you can leave them out and the class prints placeholder text; after acceptance, ACM's rights form gives you the exact lines to paste in.

Common submission pitfalls

• Front matter order. The abstract environment, \ccsdesc and \keywords must come before \maketitle. An abstract placed after it stops the build with the error "Abstract must be defined before maketitle command".
• Missing country. Current acmart requires \country in every \affiliation, and a missing one is an error. In anonymous mode it can go unnoticed until you turn anonymous off for the camera-ready version.
• Anonymization beyond the author block. The anonymous option hides names in the PDF, but your .tex source still contains them, so do not upload source files as supplementary material without checking. Write self-citations in the third person, put thanks and funding inside acks, and link an anonymized copy of any code repository.
• Page limits. Calls differ on whether references and appendices count. Check the page count in the compiled PDF, and do not shrink margins or spacing to fit; format changes are a common reason for desk rejection.
• CCS concepts. Generate the CCSXML block and \ccsdesc lines with ACM's CCS tool at dl.acm.org/ccs rather than typing them by hand. Many venues require them at camera-ready.
• Bibliography style. Keep \bibliographystyle{ACM-Reference-Format}. Entries with a doi field get a DOI link, so a wrong DOI in the .bib file ends up printed in the paper.
• Camera-ready packages. Many ACM venues now send camera-ready source through ACM's TAPS system, which compiles your .tex itself and accepts only an approved list of packages. Check that list before adding a package late.

Check before you submit

• Compile LaTeX to PDF online (free): upload the .tex file or a .zip of the project and get the PDF back, compiled with pdfLaTeX or XeLaTeX, including the BibTeX or Biber passes. Useful for a clean build on a machine that is not yours.
• BibTeX validator (free): flags missing required fields, duplicate keys, dead DOIs and entries that do not match a real paper. It runs in the browser.
• Anonymity Check ($2): scans the manuscript for author names, institutions, grant numbers, self-citation patterns and author-owned URLs before a double-blind submission.
• Paper Review (from $9): four AI reviewers read the manuscript for methods, statistics and the editor's view, and every reference is checked against CrossRef.
• Word counter (free): word counts per section, with and without references, for abstract and length limits.

Writing it on a Mac

If you write on a Mac, ModernTex is our native LaTeX editor. It compiles with the TeX distribution you already have, such as MacTeX, so acmart behaves the same as it does anywhere else, and the PDF preview stays in sync with the source. It has a 7-day free trial and then costs $10 once.