ACL LaTeX template (also EMNLP, NAACL, ARR)
ACL venues use the acl style files from github.com/acl-org/acl-style-files. Scissor LaTeX has a free look-alike for drafting in your browser, with no account: start from the ACL template, or load \usepackage[review]{acl} in an 11 pt article, for two columns on A4 with line numbers and anonymous authors in review mode. The same .tex compiles with the official style files.
Open the ACL template in the editor Free, in your browser, no account
The template
The ACL template is a natural-language-processing paper about classification with few labels, with three authors, a chart of macro-F1 against the number of labelled examples, a results table in booktabs style, author-year citations and the unnumbered "Limitations" section that ACL venues require. Open the ACL template in the editor to see all of it. It starts in preprint mode.
Turning it on
The kit is a package on an 11 pt article:
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[review]{acl}
\usepackage{times}The same kit serves the ACL conferences and ACL Rolling Review, so EMNLP, NAACL, EACL and the others use these lines too. Older package names with a year, such as acl2020, naaclhlt2019, emnlp2018, eacl2021 or coling2020, switch on the same layout. The page is always A4 with 2.5 cm margins and two columns, set in TeX Gyre Termes (a free Times substitute, downloaded the first time).
Modes
| Line | Mode | Authors | Line numbers | Page numbers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
\usepackage[review]{acl} | review copy | "Anonymous ACL submission" | yes | yes |
\usepackage[preprint]{acl} | preprint | shown | no | yes |
\usepackage{acl} or [final] | camera-ready | shown | no | no |
The legacy switch \aclfinalcopy from ACL 2020 and earlier also gives the camera-ready mode. \linenumbers and \nolinenumbers turn the line numbers on and off by hand.
Review copy with author-year citations and a Limitations section
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[review]{acl}
\usepackage{times}
\title{Label-Efficient Text Classification with Prototype Calibration}
\author{Erika Mustermann \\ Example University \\ \texttt{erika@example.org}
\And
John Doe \\ Institute of Example Studies \\ \texttt{john.doe@example.org}}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\begin{abstract}
We rescale the class prototypes of a sentence encoder with 44 labelled examples per
class and close most of the gap to full fine-tuning.
\end{abstract}
\section{Introduction}
Labelled data is expensive. Prototype classifiers need few labels, but their
distances are badly calibrated \citep{doe2024}.
\section*{Limitations}
We tested English data only.
\bibliographystyle{acl_natbib}
\bibliography{refs}
\end{document}
Problems tab: Layout in the style of the ACL style (anonymous review mode). Not official. To compile elsewhere, add acl.sty from github.com/acl-org/acl-style-files.
Citation commands
ACL papers cite author-year. The kit defines a few short forms on top of natbib; this is how they come out here.
| Command | Meant to give | In Scissor LaTeX |
|---|---|---|
\cite{key} | (Doe and Mustermann, 2024) | Works (same as \citep) |
\citep{key} | (Doe and Mustermann, 2024) | Works |
\citet{key}, \newcite{key} | Doe and Mustermann (2024) | Work |
\citeyearpar{key}, \shortcite{key} | (2024) | Partly: prints the year without the brackets |
\citeposs{key} | Doe and Mustermann's (2024) | Partly: prints the names without the 's |
The bibliography is \bibliographystyle{acl_natbib}, set as an author-year list sorted by author. See bibliographies and natbib.
Kit commands
| Command | What it does | In Scissor LaTeX |
|---|---|---|
\And, \AND | the next author beside, or on a new row | Work |
\Thanks{..} | a footnote on the title or a name | Works |
\setlength\titlebox{..} | the height of the title area | Accepted; the title area grows with its content |
\def\aclpaperid{..} | a paper ID (old kits) | Accepted |
nohyperref option | do not load hyperref | Accepted |
What differs from acl.sty
To submit, get acl.sty and acl_natbib.bst from github.com/acl-org/acl-style-files and put them next to your .tex file; it compiles unchanged. See conference look-alike templates for the other layouts.
Questions and answers
Can I use this template for EMNLP or NAACL?
Yes. EMNLP, NAACL, EACL and ACL Rolling Review all use the ACL style files, so \usepackage[review]{acl} is the right line for them.
How do I make the ACL camera-ready version?
Change \usepackage[review]{acl} to \usepackage[final]{acl} (or just \usepackage{acl}). The authors appear, and the line and page numbers go away.
Where does the Limitations section go?
After the conclusion and before the references, as \section*{Limitations}, without a number. ACL venues require it, and it does not count towards the page limit.
Every example on this page is typeset by Scissor LaTeX when the site is built. Last updated 2026-11-06.