BioMed Central TeX template  - Version 0.4 (January 27^th 2006)

1 BioMed Central LaTeX template distribution

2 Requirements

2.1

The BioMed Central TeX template should work with TeX distributions on any platform – it has been tested with TeXShop on Mac OS X and MiKTeX for Windows.

2.2

In order to submit a manuscript as a .tex file to BioMed Central, you must

• use the BioMed Central template
• format your references with BibTeX using the bmc_article.bst style file
• not rely on any non-standard macros, classes or files

If your TeX manuscript does not meet the criteria above it will need to be converted to DVI format prior to submission.

2 Guidelines for creating your manuscript using TeX

2.1

Follow the guidelines in the BioMed Central instructions for authors given at http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/

2.2

Make sure your manuscript is compiled with LaTeX2e by using documentclass{.. . } and not documentstyle{. . . } in the preamble at the top of your .tex document.

A template manuscript is supplied entitled bmc_article.tex which sets up the preferred page layout based on the standard article.cls. Two different styles are supplied; Review Style, which produces single column double spaced text, and Publication Style which produces two-column text. They can be toggled by commenting or uncommenting the relevant lines in the TeX file.

2.3

Make sure that you only a single .tex document for the entire manuscript, as you will need to upload it as a single file (together with its associated formatted bibliography file) . Do not use the \input command to include other .tex files.

2.4

The BioMed Central template uses the cite.sty citation style and url.sty for url references. It also uses ifthen.sty and multicol.sty You should also use these during the creation of your manuscript.

See

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/cite/cite.sty,
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/misc/url.sty
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/unpacked/ifthen.sty
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex209/contrib/geomsty/multicol.sty

for these style files if they are not in your local archive.

cite.sty turns [1,2,3,4] into [1-4].

url.sty formats urls so they can be broken down cleanly when overflowing the right text boundary.

3 BibTeX

References must be formatted with BibTeX using the BioMed Central style file.

i.e. when using the template, do not alter the command: \bibliographystyle{bmc_article}

The bibliography datafile is referred to with \bibliography{datafile1, . . . , . . . }

The template makes use of a sample bibliography called bmc_article.bib - you should update the \bibliography tag to refer to your own bibliography.

4 Notes on uploading your manuscript

4.1

Make sure you are submitting only one .tex document Please note that figures, large tables and any other reference material should be submitted as separate files, not embedded in the manuscript.

4.2

A .bbl file is generated when you use BibTeX to format your article's reference list. It contains formatted details of all references used in the manuscript. After uploading a TeX file to BioMed Central, you will then be prompted to upload the .bbl file which goes with it..

5 The TeX article layout

This is the sectioning for a BMC-series Research Article l manuscript submission . . .
For other types of articles or for non-BMC series journals, see the relevant section headings at http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/

• Abstract

– Background

– Results

– Conclusions

• Background

• Methods

• Results and Discussion

• Conclusions

• Acknowledgements

• References

• Figures

• Tables

• Additional files

5 Further information

The latest version of the BioMed Central TeX template distribution, and full instructions on its use, are available here:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/ifora/tex/