CREATING A CONFERENCE HANDBOOK FROM ACLPUB DUMPS

Author history:

Year	Author	Email
2013	Alex Clemmer	clemmer.alexander@gmail.com
2012	Ulrich Germann

(Includes many many legacy scripts generously contributed from previous years!)

Table of contents

Section	Description
Directory Structure	What does each of these files in this project do?
How to build	How do I build an ACL-like handbook?

Directory structure

What does each of these files in this project do?

The critical moving parts you will need to generate an ACL-style conference handbook are structured in a directory tree that is designed to approximately make sense. Here we'll show the tree structure, and explain each file inside it.

doc/
    aclpub-setup.tex
    chbk-howto.tex
input/
    demo/
        final/
            <some directories>/*_metadata.txt
        order
    workshops/
        <workshop>/
            final/
                <some directories>/*_metadata.txt
            order
scripts/
    extract-data.sh
    fix-index.perl
    insert_index.perl
    meta2bibtex.py
    order2schedule.perl
    paper_info.py
    singletrack.order2schedule.perl
    starsem.order2schedule.perl
texmf/
Makefile
README.md

doc/

Contains the .tex files that generate .pdf files that document how to make a handbook.

input/

Contains most of the data that we will use to generate .pdf renderings of the schedules for things like demos and workshops. Accordingly, this directory is partitioned between (e.g.) workshops/ and demo/ so that the data is kept neat and tidy.

More will be said about how to use this data when we talk about assembling the handbook, but there are generally two types of file: order files and *_metadata.txt files. The former contains a formatted representation of the schedules we'll use to generate nice .pdf renderings of the schedules. The latter are used to generate .bib files and .tex files containing information about the papers.

Again, more will be said about this as we talk about the build process.

scripts/

Contains scripts for extracting information out of ACLPUB tarballs. Currently there are 5 scripts that would get heavy use:

1 scripts/metabibtex.py

Wrangles proceedings metadata (the *_metadata.txt files found in the final/ directory of the ACLPUB proceedings tarball) to produce two things:

1. A rudimentary .bib file with author names and paper titles.
2. .tex files with paper titles and abstracts.
3. (Currently, all of this will go into the auto/ directory!)

These .tex files are included in the main handbook via the \input command.

meta2bibtex.py
  usage: meta2bibtex.py <'final' dir> <tag>
         where <tag> is a tag for the part of the
         conference (e.g. main, demos, worshops)

2 scripts/order2schedule.perl

Wrangles the order files (which specify the day-to-day schedule of workshops, demos, etc.) that are found in the proceedings tarball to produce:

1. Possibly many files that are designed to produce nice-looking .pdf-rendered schedules in the final handbook.
2. (Currently, all of this will go into the auto/ directory!)

These schedules are included in the main handbook via the \input command.

NOTE: this works for the style of order file we used for the proceedings. YOU MAY NEED TO EDIT THIS SCRIPT FOR THE PURPOSES OF YOUR SPECIFIC CONFERENCE!

order2schedule.perl
  usage: cat order | order2schedule.perl <tag>
         where <tag> is a tag for the part of the
         conference (e.g. main, demos, worshops)

3 scripts/starsem.order2schedule.perl

A specialized version of order2schedule.perl which is used for parallel sessions with non-synchronized paper slots.

starsem.order2schedule.perl
  usage: cat order | semstar.order2schedule.perl <tag>
         where <tag> is a tag for the part of the
         conference (e.g. main, demos, worshops)

4 scripts/singletrack.order2schedule.perl

A specialized version of order2schedule.perl which is used for single-track events, like workshops.

singletrack.order2schedule.perl
  usage: cat order | singletrack.order2schedule.perl <tag>
         where <tag> is a tag for the part of the
         conference (e.g. main, demos, worshops)

5 scripts/fix-index.perl

A script that fixes the .idx file that is produced by running latex on the document. This does things like remove the accents from authors for proper sorting in the author index. This is called by the makefile.

fix-index.perl
  usage: (please use the makefile)

texmf/

Contains tex modules required to produce handbook. You probably want to either (1) copy this into your local tex directory (often ~/texmf/) and run texconfig rehash, or (2) include this file in the appropriate env settings, so they get found by tex.

Makefile

Used to control various build processes

README.md

You are here. Your friendly neighborhood readme file.

How to build