How can I confirm that the format of the paper is correct?

Question

I am a new PhD student. I have been in school for more than a year. But I basically never met my mentor. I can only find a way to post the paper. Now, I am preparing to submit a paper to a conference. But I haven't submitted a paper before. I want to know if I use the Latex template given by the conference party to write a paper, how can I confirm that the format is correct. For example, the requirements of the paper are:

This is the requirement of this conference. Its Latex template can be found here. https://www.microarch.org/micro54/

Initially, I thought that this template should have all the relevant parameters set, but it is not. For example, Space between columns 0.25in. When I compared the pdf file generated by the template with the papers of previous years, I found that this parameter in the template was not set.

I didn’t find the font and margin settings in this template. What should I do?

Reviewing will be double blind (no author list); therefore, please do not include any author names on any submitted documents except in the space provided on the submission form.

Declare all the authors of the paper upfront

The above two paragraphs are all requirements given in the template. Does this require the author to be written in front of the paper or is it forbidden to write?

Thanks

Answer 1

The double blind refereeing instructions mean that the text of the paper should have nothing in the LaTeX \author{} macro. All the authors should be listed only on the web form you fill out when you submit the paper.

For help setting the proper margins and other formatting constants, ask at tex.stackexchange.com.

Although you have never "met" your mentor, they should probably know about this submission and should be able to help you with it.

Answer 2

As long as your paper more or less follows the guidelines, you should be fine. They most likely won't reject a paper because the distance between some columns is 10% larger or smaller than instructed. Word counts should be followed strictly though. If something isn't specified, just make sure it's readable and consistent.

Regarding naming authors: You should not mention the author, institutes or any other connection that gives a clue to who the author(s) are in the main document. However, you should add all names and affiliations in the submission system (you will most likely see it when you start the submission).

A good way to get started is to open the submission system and have a look. Usually you can cancel or save your progress, but this gives you an idea of what to expect.

Answer 3

The page you linked implies heavily that conference organisers think the template is set properly. They also provide a sample. Compile the sample, and if it gives better results than the template, use the sample as your template.

In any case, don't add additional settings to the template without a consultation with the organisers. It is a lot of work to track and undo such changes if they were uncalled for. If the template was indeed faulty, it's also their responsibility, not yours. Besides, the reason you have different resulting document may arise from different internal settings of your TeX distribution, or a program you use.