The problem with LaTeX templates

Practically every journal supplying a LaTeX template defines its own custom macros for author affiliations and other metadata, with very little consistency from one publisher to another. This renders the process of re-submitting a manuscript to a new journal really cumbersome. Consider the following two examples:

OSA

\title{Manuscript Title}

\author[1,2,3]{Author One}
\author[2,*]{Author Two}

\affil[1]{First address}
\affil[2]{Second address}
\affil[3]{Third address}

\affil[*]{Corresponding author: email@my-email.com}
\dates{Compiled \today}
\ociscodes{(140.3490) Lasers, distributed feedback; (060.2420) Fibers.}

ACS

\title{Manuscript title}

\author{Author One}
\affiliation{First address}
\alsoaffiliation{Second address}
\email{email@my-email.com}

\author{Author Two} 
\phone{+123456789}
\fax{+123456789}
\email{email@my-email.com}
\affiliation{First address}
\alsoaffiliation{Second address}
\alsoaffiliation{Third address}

\abbreviations{IR,NMR,UV}
\keywords{American Chemical Society}

The pandoc way

pandoc provides a way to populate latex templates with custom metadata stored in a human-readable yaml format. Unfortunately, the template itself is coded in tex – not the easiest language to work with.

$if(abstract)$
\abstract{%
$abstract$
}
$endif$

$body$

$for(author)$
\address{%
$author.name$\\
$author.affiliation$\\
$for(author.address)$$author.address$$sep$\\ $endfor$\\
}
$if(author.email)$$author.email$$endif$

$endfor$

A standardised, human-readable format

We'll store the metadata in an external file, in yaml format.

title: On physics and chemistry
date: "\\today"

authors:
  - name: Lise Meitner
    affiliation: [Kaiser Wilhelm Institute,
                University of Berlin,
                Manne Siegbahn Institute]
    collaboration: Wikipedia
    email: lise.meitner@institution.edu
    corresponding: true

  - name: Pierre Curie
    affiliation: École Normale Supérieure
    collaboration: Wikipedia
    email: pierre.curie@institution.edu
    homepage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Curie
    corresponding: true

  - name: Marie Curie
    affiliation: [University of Paris,
                 Institut du Radium,
                 École Normale Supérieure]
    collaboration: Wikipedia
    email: marie.curie@institution.edu
    corresponding: false
    homepage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie
    phone: +123456
    fax: 123456

thanks: Friends and colleagues
keywords: [physics, science, everything]
abbreviations: [UV,IR]
pacs: [123, 456, 789] # https://publishing.aip.org/publishing/pacs
ociscodes: [123, 456, 789] # https://www.osapublishing.org/submit/ocis
preprint: APS/123-ABC

abstract: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

This file can contain more information than needed, and is common to all versions of the manuscript, regardless of the publisher's template. From these data, we will populate the TeX macros relevant to a given LaTeX template as needed.

Pre-defined templates

The package defines 4 templates, shown below.

glue::glue_collapse(purrr::invoke_map_chr(tpl_aps(), meta=meta), sep = "\n%\n")

\title{On physics and chemistry}
%
\author{Lise Meitner}
\affiliation{Kaiser Wilhelm Institute}
\affiliation{University of Berlin}
\affiliation{Manne Siegbahn Institute}
\email{lise.meitner@institution.edu}
\author{Pierre Curie}
\affiliation{École Normale Supérieure}
\email{pierre.curie@institution.edu}
\author{Marie Curie}
\affiliation{University of Paris}
\affiliation{Institut du Radium}
\affiliation{École Normale Supérieure}

%
\date{\today}
%
\pacs{123,456,789}
\keywords{physics,science,everything}

glue::glue_collapse(purrr::invoke_map_chr(tpl_acs(), meta=meta), sep = "\n%\n")

\title{On physics and chemistry}
%
\author{Lise Meitner}
\affiliation{Kaiser Wilhelm Institute}
\alsoaffiliation{University of Berlin}
\alsoaffiliation{Manne Siegbahn Institute}
\email{lise.meitner@institution.edu}
\author{Pierre Curie}
\affiliation{École Normale Supérieure}
\email{pierre.curie@institution.edu}
\author{Marie Curie}
\affiliation{University of Paris}
\alsoaffiliation{Institut du Radium}
\alsoaffiliation{École Normale Supérieure}

%
\date{\today}
%
\abbreviations{UV,IR}
\keywords{physics,science,everything}

glue::glue_collapse(purrr::invoke_map_chr(tpl_osa(), meta=meta), sep = "\n%\n")

\title{On physics and chemistry}
%
\author[1,2,3]{Lise Meitner}
\author[4]{Pierre Curie}
\author[5,6,4]{Marie Curie}
\affil[1]{Kaiser Wilhelm Institute}
\affil[2]{University of Berlin}
\affil[3]{Manne Siegbahn Institute}
\affil[4]{École Normale Supérieure}
\affil[5]{University of Paris}
\affil[6]{Institut du Radium}
%
\dates{\today}
%
\ociscodes{123,456,789}

glue::glue_collapse(purrr::invoke_map_chr(tpl_article(), meta=meta), sep = "\n%\n")

\usepackage{authblk}
%
\title{On physics and chemistry}
%
\author[1,2,3]{Lise Meitner\thanks{lise.meitner@institution.edu}}
\author[4]{Pierre Curie\thanks{pierre.curie@institution.edu}}
\author[5,6,4]{Marie Curie}
\affil[1]{Kaiser Wilhelm Institute}
\affil[2]{University of Berlin}
\affil[3]{Manne Siegbahn Institute}
\affil[4]{École Normale Supérieure}
\affil[5]{University of Paris}
\affil[6]{Institut du Radium}
%
\date{\today}

TODO list

• use better fake names, phones etc. with charlatan package https://github.com/ropensci/charlatan
• compile a list of LaTeX templates
• turn them into glue templates
• fine-tune the glueing process (line breaks, missing values, strange characters, etc.)
• wrap into a package (cf Rticles)
• make a Rstudio add-in
• figure out where this fits in the rmarkdown + pandoc templates side of things (need to inject a R-processed $meta-header$ into the template, but before knitting -- somewhat incompatible with a single pass?)
• consider alternative languages (Haskell, javascript, TeX seem obvious candidates)