Journal look-alike templates

Q: Can I switch an existing paper to another journal?

Change the \documentclass line, and the class-specific commands such as \affiliation or \affil. Standard LaTeX in the body stays as it is.

Yes. When your document uses a journal class such as revtex4-2, elsarticle, sn-jnl, amsart, IEEEtran, acmart with acmsmall, aa, iopjournal, mdpi or aastex701, Scissor LaTeX lays it out like that journal's format, with the modes the class has. Twelve templates start from one of them.

What these templates are

Journals publish author kits: a class, a template .tex and a bibliography style. Scissor LaTeX does not run those files. It recognises the \documentclass line (and, for PLOS ONE, the template's page geometry or .bst) and switches to its own layout in the same style: page size, columns, fonts, title block, headings, captions and the reference style. Your .tex stays standard, so the same file compiles with the official kit in a TeX installation.

To start from one, choose New project in the editor and open the Journals tab.

The twelve layouts

Journal	Line that switches it on	Modes	Page
APS Physical Review	`\documentclass[reprint,aps,prb]{revtex4-2}`	reprint, preprint	Letter, two columns
AIP journals	`\documentclass[aip,jap,reprint]{revtex4-2}`	reprint, preprint	Letter, two columns
Elsevier	`\documentclass[preprint,12pt]{elsarticle}`	preprint, review, 1p, 3p, 5p	A4, one or two columns
Springer Nature	`\documentclass[pdflatex,sn-mathphys-num]{sn-jnl}`	default, iicol, referee, lineno	A4, one column
AMS journals	`\documentclass{amsart}`	none (`reqno` puts equation numbers right)	Letter, one column
IEEE Transactions	`\documentclass[journal]{IEEEtran}`	journal, peerreview, draftcls	Letter, two columns
ACM journals	`\documentclass[acmsmall]{acmart}`	review, anonymous, nonacm	Letter, one column
Astronomy & Astrophysics	`\documentclass{aa}`	default, referee, letter	A4, two columns
IOP Publishing	`\documentclass{iopjournal}`	default, anonymous	A4, one column
MDPI	`\documentclass[journal,article,submit,moreauthors]{Definitions/mdpi}`	submit, accept	A4, one column
PLOS ONE	`\documentclass[10pt,letterpaper]{article}` with the template's geometry	none	Letter, one column, wide left margin
AAS journals	`\documentclass[twocolumn,linenumbers]{aastex701}`	default, twocolumn, manuscript, preprint, preprint2, modern, anonymous	Letter, one or two columns

Every journal document shows one note in the Problems tab that names the layout and mode, and where to get the official files. Options a layout does not draw (such as revtex rmp, IEEEtran compsoc or the older iopart class) use the nearest layout, with a note.

Fonts

Most layouts use Latin Modern, as the kits use Computer Modern. IEEE Transactions is set in TeX Gyre Termes (a free Times), ACM journals in Libertinus, MDPI in TeX Gyre Pagella (a free Palatino) with Pagella Math, and the sans headings of AIP, A&A and IOP in Latin Modern Sans. A&A with txfonts, elsarticle with times and AASTeX with times switch the text to Termes. These fonts are downloaded the first time a document needs them.

Physics

APS Physical Review (revtex4-2)

First page of the aps template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

The title block spans both columns; affiliations follow the authors they belong to, or are numbered with superscriptaddress. Sections are numbered in Roman numerals and set in capitals, captions read "FIG. 1." and "TABLE I.", and references are numbered. preprint gives one column at 12 pt.

AIP journals (revtex4-2)

First page of the aip template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

The same class with the aip option and a journal such as jap, jcp or apl: the title, authors and headings are in sans serif and flush left.

IOP Publishing (iopjournal)

First page of the iop template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

There is no \maketitle: the article type, title, authors, affiliations, keywords and abstract print where they are written. The back-matter commands \ack, \funding, \roles and \data become headed sections, and anonymous hides the authors for review.

Astronomy

Astronomy & Astrophysics (aa)

First page of the aa template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

Two columns on A4 with a structured abstract (\abstract{context}{aims}{methods}{results}{conclusions}, five arguments), \tablefoot notes under tables and author-year citations.

AAS journals (AASTeX 7)

First page of the aas template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

aastex701 (and older names such as aastex631) with its layout options; the template uses twocolumn and linenumbers, as AAS asks for submission. Citations are author-year.

Mathematics and computing

AMS journals (amsart)

First page of the ams template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

One column with the class's title block and headings, theorems that share a counter (\newtheorem{lemma}[theorem]{Lemma}) and count within sections ([section]), and the authors' addresses at the end of the article, as amsart prints them. amsproc uses the same layout.

IEEE Transactions (IEEEtran)

First page of the ieee-trans template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

IEEEtran without the conference option is the journal layout: running heads from \markboth, \thanks notes without marks under the title, Roman section numbers and numbered references. See also IEEE conference.

ACM journals (acmart)

First page of the acm-journal template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

acmart with acmsmall, acmlarge, acmtog or manuscript is drawn in the one-column journal layout, with CCS concepts, keywords and the reference format block. review adds line and page numbers, anonymous hides the authors. See also ACM sigconf.

Multidisciplinary publishers

Elsevier (elsarticle)

First page of the elsevier template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

Authors are linked to lettered affiliations, with \ead e-mail notes and \cortext for the corresponding author; the abstract and keyword list sit between two rules in the frontmatter. 1p, 3p and 5p give the journal looks, authoryear author-year references.

Springer Nature (sn-jnl)

First page of the springer-nature template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

Numbered affiliations, \author* for the corresponding author, and the back-matter statements. The reference option (sn-mathphys-num, sn-basic, sn-nature and the others) chooses the citation style.

MDPI

The class name ends in mdpi (the template uses Definitions/mdpi). The first option is the journal, the second the article type; submit turns line numbers on and accept off. The title block comes from preamble commands such as \Title and \Author, with a wide left margin.

PLOS ONE

First page of the plos template — Open in editor (opens in a new tab)

PLOS has no class: the layout is recognised from the template's geometry line (a 2.75 in left margin) or a plos bibliography style. Line numbers come from \linenumbers, as in the official template.

What is the same in every layout

Everything Scissor LaTeX supports works inside a journal document: math, theorems, tables, figures, pgfplots charts, citations and cross-references. figure* and table* span both columns in the two-column layouts. Each layout sets its default bibliography style; see bibliographies.

Also see

Conference look-alike templates for IEEE, ACM, LNCS, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ACL and the arXiv style.
Document classes for how the class line chooses a layout.

Questions and answers

Are these the official journal templates?

No. They are look-alike layouts for drafting and previewing. For submission, download the journal's official kit; your .tex file works with it unchanged.

My revtex or elsarticle paper looked like a plain article before. Why did it change?

These classes now have their own look-alike layouts. Nothing in your file changes; only the preview follows the class line.

Can I switch an existing paper to another journal?

Change the \documentclass line, and the class-specific commands such as \affiliation or \affil. Standard LaTeX in the body stays as it is.