APA 7th edition template (apa7)

apa7 is distributed on CTAN as the apa7 package and included in TeX Live and MiKTeX. The reference list comes from a separate package, biblatex-apa. The class is not published or endorsed by the American Psychological Association, and a journal that follows APA style can still add its own rules, so read the journal's instructions as well.

Minimal skeleton

Save your references as references.bib in the same folder. The build is pdfLaTeX, then Biber (not BibTeX), then pdfLaTeX twice. latexmk runs those passes for you, and so does the online compiler linked below.

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

\documentclass[man]{apa7}
% \documentclass[stu]{apa7}   % student paper
% \documentclass[jou]{apa7}   % typeset, two-column look
% \documentclass[doc]{apa7}   % ordinary LaTeX document look

\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=apa,backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{references.bib}

\title{Paper Title in Title Case}
\shorttitle{Short Title}

\authorsnames{First Author, Second Author}
\authorsaffiliations{{Department, University}}

\authornote{Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
First Author, Department, University. Email: first@example.edu}

\abstract{One paragraph that states the problem, the method, and the result.}
\keywords{first keyword, second keyword}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

Opening paragraphs go here without a heading, because the title
serves as the introduction's heading. A parenthetical citation
\parencite{example}, and a narrative one: \textcite{example}.

\section{Method}
Text.

\subsection{Participants}
Text.

\section{Results}
Text.

\section{Discussion}
Text.

\printbibliography

\end{document}

The affiliation is wrapped in a second pair of braces because commas separate affiliations in \authorsaffiliations; without them, "Department" and "University" print as two affiliations. For authors with different affiliations, \authorsnames takes an optional argument that maps each author to an affiliation; the class documentation has examples.

Key options

• man: the manuscript format for journal submission. Double-spaced 12pt text, a title page, the abstract on its own page, a running head from \shorttitle, and figures and tables moved to the end.
• stu: a student paper. Add \course, \professor and \duedate for the title page; the class warns if they are missing.
• jou: a typeset, journal-like layout, for sharing a readable copy. If you give no mode at all, the version tested for this page (2.16) uses jou.
• doc: an ordinary LaTeX document look, single column.
• mask: hides the author names, affiliations and author note for masked review.
• floatsintext: keeps figures and tables where you put them in man mode instead of moving them to the end.
• a4paper: A4 instead of US letter.
• biblatex: makes the class load biblatex with style=apa and backend=biber for you, in place of the \usepackage line in the skeleton.

Common submission pitfalls

• Biber, not BibTeX. biblatex-apa only works with Biber. If the references come out as bold citation keys, the Biber pass did not run. Older tutorials also add \DeclareLanguageMapping{american}{american-apa}; current versions of biblatex-apa do not need it.
• Title case in the .bib file. biblatex-apa converts article titles to sentence case, so enter them in title case and put braces around words that must keep their capitals, such as {LaTeX} or a proper noun.
• Figures at the end. In man mode the class moves figures and tables after the references. APA 7 allows them either there or in the text, so follow the journal. The class uses the endfloat package for this, so \begin{figure} and \end{figure} must each be on a line of their own, or the build fails. Use floatsintext if the journal wants them in the text.
• Masked review. The mask option hides the title-page details, but not self-citations in the text. Cite your own work with \maskparencite or \masktextcite: with mask on they print "(1 citation removed for masked review)", and without it they print a normal citation.
• No "Introduction" heading. In APA style the paper's title, repeated at the top of the first page of text, serves as the heading of the introduction. Start the first section after it with Method or its equivalent. \section gives a Level 1 heading and \subsection a Level 2.
• Abstract length. APA 7 suggests an abstract of no more than 250 words, and many journals set a lower limit. Count it before you submit.

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 apa7 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.