Simplified LNCS Template

Quick start for modern LaTeXing with LNCS.

Usage

• paper.tex is the main document
• Use "lualatex + bibtex" in your TeX editor or latexmk paper / make in the command line

Using latexmk

latexmk is a very smart tool for latex compilation. It executes the latex tools as often as needed to get the final PDF. (More information about why latexmk is great can be found at https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/249243/9075.)

To build the whole document, execute following command. Note that this requires a working perl installation.

latexmk paper

To enable latexmk, please move _latexmkrc to latexmkrc.

If you want automatic compilation use following command:

latexmk -pvc paper

This will also open a Sumatra PDF and only works with the supplied configuration.

latexmk configuration

This repository ships a .latexmkrc which is read by latexmk. In case there is a _latexmkrc file, you need to rename it to .latexmkrc. It is configured for Windows and especially sets Sumatra PDF as default PDF viewer. You can make this local configuration a global configuration, when you put it at the right place.

If you want to add more packages, configure it there. For instance, for support of makeglossaries see http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1226/how-to-make-latexmk-use-makeglossaries.

Debugging LaTeX errors

In case something goes wrong, you can instruct the LaTeX compiler to stop at the first error:

lualatex --synctex=1 --shell-escape paper

Run bibtex paper to get the bibliography rendered (execute lualatex afterwards).

Advanced usage

On the command line, there are additional features:

• latexmk -C or make clean for cleaning up
• make format to reformat the .tex files (one sentence per line and indent)
• make aspell for interactive spell checking
• make stand: Creates a new PDF with the current status of the thesis.
• make view: Opens the configured viewer
• make mrproper: Cleans up and removes also editor backup files.

Benefits

Following features are enabled in this template:

• Provides a skeletal paper.tex file
• Example to have an image being placed right to a text
• Support for German documents (without broken headers): Contains a fix to increase compatibility with Babel. See https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/441701/9075 for details.
• Automatic setting of "Fig." and "Section"/"Sect." according to the LNCS style. Just use \Cref{sec:xy} at the beginning of a sentence and \cref{sec:xy} in the middle of a sentence. Thanx to cleveref.
• Sharper font (still compatible with Springer's requirements).
• (Optional) Typesetting of listings using advanced highlighting powered by the minted package. minted provides better output than listings, but requires pygments to be installed.
• Generated PDF allows for copy and paste of text without getting words with ligatures such as "workflow" destroyed. This is enabled by glyphtounicode, which encodes ligatures (such as fl) using unicode characters.
• Ligatures are removed if they are typeset at the wrong place. This is enabled by the selnolig package.
• Support of hyperlinked references without extra color thanx to hyperref.
• Better breaking of long URLs.
• Support for \powerset command.
• (Optional) Support todos as pdf annotations. This is enabled by the pdfcomment package.
• microtypographic extensions for a better look of the paper.
• Modern packages such as microtype, cleveref, csquotes, hyperref, hypcap, upquote, natbib, booktabs.
• (Optional) LaTeX compilation using the modern lualatex compiler. For older systems, pdflatex is still supported.
• latexmk for easy compilation of the LaTeX document.
• Ready-to-go configuration for latexindent.
• Proper hyphenation and microtype for English texts.

Disabled features

Following features were not activated for this template. You can run the latex template generator to enable the features.

Hints on writing an abstract and thesis by Dirk Fahland.

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

Examples

• paper.pdf - normal paper.
• paper-minted.pdf - paper showing minted in action.
• paper-newtx.pdf - paper typeset in Times Roman to save some space.
• paper-minted-newtx.pdf - paper typeset in Times Roman to save some space.

Background

The official template is available at https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines --> "Templates, samples files & useful links" --> "LaTeX2e Proceedings Templates (zip)"

Quick start

• Click on Download ZIP or here.
• Extract LNCS-main.zip in the folder where you want to write your paper.
• Edit paper.tex.
• latexmk paper.

When using on overleaf, you have to switch Overleaf to use TeXLive 2024 (or later).

As you see on GitHub actions, the paper compiles out of the box. There is no need to adjust the packages or to remove some of them. This might lead to undesired results such as hyperlinks not working any more or no good microtypographic features. In case you think, a package needs to be altered or added, feel free to open an issue.

Tool hints

Prerequisites

• Windows: Recent MiKTeX. MiKTeX installation hints are given at http://latextemplates.github.io/scientific-thesis-template/#installation-hints-for-windows.
• Mac OS X: Recent TeX Live (e.g. through MacTeX) - Try sudo tlmgr update --all if you encounter issues with biblatex
• Linux: Recent TeX Live distribution
• 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).

Usage of minted

To have minted running properly, you have to do following steps on Windows:

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.

VSCode configuration

Currently, following extensions are recommended:

• LaTeX Workshop to support LaTeX in VSCode and
• LaTeX Utilities to enhance LaTeX Workshop
• LTeX+ to have a nice spell checker that also identifies grammar issues

Then, change the setting of LaTeX Workshop to use biber:

Press Shift+Ctrl+P to open the command palette. Then type "JSON" and select "Preferences: Open Settings (JSON)" to open settings.json.

Update the following lines in VSCode's settings.json to contain:

    "latex-workshop.latex.recipes": [
        {
            "name": "lualatex ➞ bibtex ➞ lualatex × 2 🔃",
            "tools": [
                "lualatex",
                "bibtex",
                "lualatex",
                "lualatex"
            ]
        },
    ],
    "latex-workshop.latex.tools": [
        // ...
        {
            "name": "bibtex",
            "command": "bibtex",
            "args": [
                "%DOCFILE%"
            ],
            "env": {}
        },
        // ...
    ],

The following settings are additionally recommended:

{
    "editor.wordWrap": "on",                              // enable soft line breaks
    "latex-workshop.view.pdf.viewer": "tab",              // display the generaded PDF in a separate tab
    "latex-workshop.view.pdf.backgroundColor": "#cccccc", // use a darker background in de PDF viewer to lift of the pages from it
    "latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.run": "never",        // never automatically build; alternative: "onSave" (on saving .tex files)
    "editor.renderWhitespace": "all",                     // display all whitespaces
}

Alternatively, just copy and paste the contents of the vscode.settings.json file to your VSCode settings file.

You can manually trigger compilation by hitting the green button in the extension or using other methods provided by LaTeX Workshop.

Please remove the magic comments (% !TeX program ...) at the top of the main-....tex file. Although LaTeX-Workshop supports magic comments, it currently does not work reliably. Without the magic comments, compilation works.

LTeX+ tips and tricks

LTeX+ is an offline grammar and spell checker with support for LaTeX and Markdown.

Add a magic comment to your files to tell LTeX+ which language to use:

% LTeX: language=de-DE

If you want to use different languages in the text, use the \foreignlanguage{language}{text} command. LTeX+ will detect these elements and automatically switch the spell checker's language. For example:

\foreignlanguage{english}{Therefore, our proposed approach will change the world.}

Usage with docker

The generated Dockerfile is based on the Dockerfile by the Island of TeX.

docker run --rm -v "c:\users\example\latex-document:/workdir" ltg latexmk

Following one-time setup is required:

docker build -t ltg .

Contained Directories and Files

Directories

• figures Directory containing the figures. By using LuaLaTex/PDFLaTeX it is possible to use PDFs, JPGs, PNGs, ... We recommend to use PDFs to enable smooth scaling.

Files

• paper.tex - The main .tex file loading all LaTeX packages and their configurations.
  • Add text here
  • Adjust title etc. here
• bibliography.bib - Bibliography. biblatex format. Manage it with JabRef.
• abbreviations.tex - Acronyms and abbreviations.
• commands.tex - Example LaTeX macros.

Following additional files are included, which do not need to be adapted:

• localSettings.yaml - Settings for latexindent
• Makefile - The Makefile. Builds on latexmk.
• Texlivefile - List of packages required for a minimal TeXLive installation.

FAQs

Q: Overleaf outputs a warning regarding the llncs class

Overleaf might output following warning:

LaTeX Warning: You have requested, on input line 8, version 2018/03/10' of document class llncs, but only version 2004/08/17 v2.14 LaTeX document class for Lecture Notes in Computer Science' is available.

The reason is that you did not use llncs.cls (included in your LaTeX distribution). Please remove the file and update your LaTeX distribution.

Q: How can I synchronize updates from the template to my repository?

1. Initialize your git repository as usual
2. Add this repository as git remote: git remote add template https://github.com/latextemplates/{template}.git
3. Merge the branch template/main into your main branch: git merge template/main.

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

Q: I get the error ! pdfTeX error (font expansion): auto expansion is only possible with scalable fonts.

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

Q: I get Package csquotes Error: Unbalanced groups or invalid nesting. What can I do?

A: You have activated \MakeOuterQuote{"} and used some special babel command to allow hyphenation at other places as a dash. One example is writing application"=specific. Now, you have to decide whether you want keep using plain quotes to enquote a word or use the special hyphenation command. In other words: Do you want "quote" and app\-lication\-specific or \enquote{quote} and application"=specific?

Note that this should not happen when the template is generated as the setting tweakouterquote ensures that these two options are mutually exclusive.

Q: I need more space. What can I do?

The most simple solution to get more space is to exchange the font.

Q: How can I reformat my .tex files?

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

Alternatively, execute make format.

Q: How I want to obey the one-sentence-per-line rule. How to do?

See "How can I reformat my .tex files?"

Q: I want to use minted, because I think its syntax highlighting seems to be better.

You can re-generate the template and choose minted as listings environment. Moreover, ensure that python and pygments are installed properly:

• choco install python
• pip install pygments

Q: Is it possible to have a footer indicating that the paper is intended to be submitted/submitted/published?

Activate the llncsconf package. The possible options are listed in paper.tex.

Q: Can I also write in German?

Yes. You can regenerate the template and choose "German" as language.

Q: ngerman-x-latest is reported missing

Install the package dehyph-exptl.

Q: I get ! I can't find file `clmr28t10+20'.

You seem to use latexmk locally. Please move _latexmkrc to latexmkrc to get latexmk working. If you don't do this, latexmk tries to execute latex, which tries to produce a DVI file (and not a PDF file).

Q: I get Font "LatinModernMath-Regular" not found.. What can I do?

Error message:

luaotfload | db : Reload initiated (formats: otf,ttf,ttc); reason: Font "LatinModernMath-Regular" not found.
luaotfload | resolve : sequence of 3 lookups yielded nothing appropriate.

! Package fontspec Error: The font "LatinModernMath-Regular" cannot be found.

Install the package lm-math manually.

Q: I get ! Package fontspec Error: The font "TeXGyreTermes" cannot be found.. What can I do?

Install the package tex-gyre and tex-gyre-math manually.

Q: I get ! error: (type 1): cannot find encoding file 'ntx-ot1-tlf.enc' for reading. What can I do?

See https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/240850/9075: Install the packages newpx and newtxsf manually.

Q: I get ! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size=3000000].. What can I do?

Follow the steps at https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/548335/9075

Try with following command

lualatex -shell-escape --extra-mem-top=10000000 --synctex=1 paper.tex

See https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/124206/9075 for details.

Q: There is an output that biber/biblatex too old

See installation hints of how to update them at different systems.

Q: MiKTeX complains about missing .sty files.

Use the MiKTeX console to refresh the package index. Then, automatic installation should work again.

Q: I cannot get minted to run. There is this -shell-escape warning.

Please ensure that your compilation command includes -shell-escape. E.g., lualatex -shell-escape -synctex=1 main-minted-german.tex. When compiling main-minted-german.tex with TeXStudio, you will see a dialog warning about overriding the compilation command. Just answer "(a) allow for this document" and it will work.

Q: How to include Excel charts properly?

1. Select the Excel chart you want to use.
2. Print to PDF with the option "Print Selected Chart".
3. Remove empty space of the created PDF page with pdfcrop chart.pdf chart_cropped.pdf (install via MikTeX first, if not available; check via pdfcrop --version).
4. Use pdfscissors to crop the borders and title (maybe you have to allow https://sites.google.com in the Java security center in the control panel).
5. Include the PDF in LaTeX via \includegraphics{chart_cropped.pdf}.

Further information

• tex.stackexchange.com questions regarding LNCS: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/lncs
• Original LNCS demonstration (without the improvements): llncs-dem.pdf
• Original LNCS documentation (without the improvements): llncs-doc.pdf
• Other templates: https://latextemplates.github.io/
• For German users, go to https://texfragen.de/.
• Frank Mittelbach with Ulrike Fischer: The LaTeX Companion is the ultimate guide for LaTeX: The authors went through all packages offered by CTAN, selected the most promising ones, described them, and provide minimal working example for each of it.
• Lutz Hering, Heike Hering: How to Write Technial Reports, Springer, 2010; also available in German Technische Berichte - verständlich gliedern, gut gestalten, überzeugend vortragen. - Highly recommended, because it guides through all aspects of a report (such as a Master Thesis).
• Marcus Deininger et al.: Studienarbeiten - Ein Leitfaden zur Erstellung, Durchführung und Präsentation wissenschaftlicher Abschlussarbeiten am Beispiel Informatik, vdf. - Recommended as guideline for planning and working on the whole thesis.
• Charles Lipson, Cite Right, Second Edition: A Quick Guide to Citation Styles--MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and More, Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing, 2011. - Recommended in case you are unsure about how to correctly cite something.

License

The license of this work is 0BSD which corresponds to "public domain". Any derived work can freely be relicensed and can omit original copyright and license information.