Export to Overleaf LaTeX

Preparation in Overleaf

New Project

Start a new project in Overleaf by clicking ‘New Project’ (top left on the screen), scroll all the way to the bottom of the pop-up list and choose ‘View all’. In the search box type ‘ACM’ then choose ‘Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) - Generic Journal Manuscript Template’ from the results. When this opens choose ‘Open as Template’ which will create a new project in your Overleaf using this template. Rename the Project to the name you want to use by clicking on the template name at the top of the screen and choosing ‘Rename’.

Add Files

Add .tex file by clicking on the document with a plus icon top left. Name the new file ‘main.tex’ and click ‘Create’.

Add .bib file by clicking on the document with a plus icon top left. Name the new file ‘references.bib’ and click ‘Create’.

The two new (empty) files are added to your project files. The .tex file will hold the document's LaTeX code and the .bib file will hold the BibTeX data for the references.

Settings

Open Settings by clicking the gear icon at the bottom left on the sidebar in your Overleaf window.

In the left sidebar click ‘Compiler’ then, in the Main document pop-up, select ‘main.tex’. (This ensures that when the project is (re-)compiled it is always ‘main.tex’ which is compiled as opposed to using whatever other project file might be selected, leading to unnecessary problems).

In the Compiler popup, select the latest release year available to make sure you use the latest LaTeX. (Overleaf adds the new TeXLive release c.4–6 months after the distribution released. If reusing an old project, it pays to check and updated to the latest compiler

available).

Export from Author

In the Export / LaTeX dialog in Author you need to fill in the requested information, then:

Click ‘Copy for .tex file’, go to your Overleaf project, click on ‘main.text’ and paste what you copied. If you had any information here before, be sure to select and delete it before pasting.

Click ‘Copy for .bib file’, go to your Overleaf project, click on ‘references.bib’ and paste what you copied. If you had any information here before, be sure to select and delete it before pasting.

To upload images click the ‘upload’ icon (up arrow) in the top-left corner of your project file panel. Then drag and drop your images or click Select from your computer to browse your files.

Updates of ‘acmart’ for Overleaf

‘acmart’ is a ready-made LaTeX template from ACM (the Association for Computing Machinery) that automatically formats your paper to look exactly the way ACM requires for their journals and conferences — you just write your content and it handles the layout, fonts, headings, and citation style.

To update, get a copy of the new acmart package then copy the acmart.cls and ACM-Reference-Format.bst files and paste them into the project, overwrite existing copies of these files if present. (N.B. Overleaf, by default uses the version of packages, such as acmart, as current when the TextLive distribution was released: that package version is not updated until Overleaf as adds the next's years TeXLive distribution. Thus, adding the above files to an project overrides the old CLS/BST files so the current form is used).

You can download acmart releases from https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template