I have modified our submissions server to allow for email attachments. You may now attach your postscript file instead of inserting it in the main body of your message. This modification is experimental: please email me (joe@research.nj.nec.com if you detect any anomalous behavior, whether or not you are using attachments.
The electronic submissions system is routinely updated. We encourage you to read this document well in advance of the deadline, to familiarize yourself with the basics of the submission process. Before submitting, we encourage you to reload this document, so you will have the most up-to-date instructions. Also, when you register with the server, you will be put on a mailing list that will be used for last minute information.
Questions about the submission process may be sent to joe@research.nj.nec.com.
The electronic submission of papers is made possible by some experimental software being developed by Sam Rebelsky (samr@cs.dartmouth.edu) and SIGACT's Electronic Publishing Board. A variant of this server has been used successfully for several conferences already (FOCS, PODC, SODA, STOC, WDAG, etc). However, because of the experimental nature of the software, because email can be at times unreliable, and because "good" postscript files can fail to print on "good" postscript printers, the program committee cannot assume responsiblity for technical problems, although we will do our best to make sure that no such problems occur. For this reason we request that you submit your paper as early as possible.
In addition, please keep in mind the following:
It does not suffice that your text fit on the appropriate area: If your PostScript file specifies A4 format (you can usually check this yourself by looking at the header of the file) it will ruin the day of most US printers. It is also important that your file conform to the document structuring conventions, or your paper may not be processed correctly.
If you use dvips, the appropriate command is
If you use another mechanism for generating PostScript, please contact your technical support people.dvips -t letter
The submissions server has a test print feature for testing papers for printability. We strongly recommend using it, especially if you have not used this software before or are using a new document preparation package. The submissions server will make some attempt to identify papers in A4 format, and will issue warnings if it suspects a problem. It will not detect PostScript files that do not conform to the document structuring conventions.
Our experience is that most, but not all postscript files produced today conform to the document structuring conventions (DSC). DSC files have header information specifying such information as the number of pages, the ordering of the pages and the paper size (and many other optional comments as well). Here is an example of the beginning of such a header:
Pages begin with a line of the form%!PS-Adobe-2.0 %%Creator: dvipsk 5.58f Copyright 1986, 1994 Radical Eye Software %%Title: coloring.dvi %%Pages: 15 %%PageOrder: Ascend %%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792 %%DocumentPaperSizes: Letter %%EndComments %DVIPSCommandLine: /usr/local/bin/dvips coloring.dvi -o coloring.ps -t %+ letter ...
If your paper looks like this, you are probably in good shape. To be sure, contact your systems support person. A fuller description of these conventions is given in the PostScript Language Reference Manual (second edition), Appendix G.%%Page:...
If your postscript file is not DSC compliant, do NOT attempt to manually make it compliant by inserting lines from the example! Ask your systems support person for help. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to help you ourselves.
All commands must be placed in the subject line of the message. A detailed description of these commands can be found in section on Server Commands.
Please note:
The basic procedure to submit your paper by email involves two steps:
Please be patient and wait at least several hours for the acknowledgement of your last request before repeating any action with the server (or before sending mail to joe@research.nj.nec.com). Network delays can be significant at times. Email is rather reliable and will try delivery for up to 5 days before giving up. This is yet another good reason why you should not wait until the last minute for registering and submitting.
In addition to the two basic commands, the submissions server has a number of commands that are useful prior to and after submitting a paper.
Before submitting a paper, it is a good idea to test early in advance the printability of the postscript that your text formatter is generating. For this you can send a "test print" command to the server with the postscript file included in the message body. You will receive an acknowledgement containing the result of the test. (This is the same quick check for postscript errors performed when you submit your paper with the submit command.)
After you have submitted your paper, and any time before the deadline, you can revise your paper by sending a "revise <key>" command to the server. This will have the effect of replacing your previous copy at the server with the new one. You can also withdraw your paper by sending a "withdraw <key>" command.
At any time, you can ask the server for help by sending a "help" command, and you can ask the server for the current status of your paper in the database (i.e., registered, submitted, revised, withdrawn; not its reviewing status) by sending a "status <key>" command.
It is possible to practice submitting a paper before doing the real submission. First you send a "test register" command to the server and wait for it to acknowledge the test registration and provide you with a test-key; then you send a "submit <test-key>" command containing the test postscript file.
You must still use the register command after performing a test register and submit sequence. The register command will give a different key; do not use the key generated earlier by the test register command.
See the section on
Server Commands
for a detailed description of the commands available.
If for some reason you need some extra help with email submission,
please send mail to
joe@research.nj.nec.com
.
Case is not significant in commands to the server. The commands available are: register, submit, revise, withdraw, status, test register, test print, help.
HELPRequest help on the electronic submission process. You will receive this document (or a variant) in response.
REGISTERInform the server that you plan to submit a paper electronically. This is only used for electronic submissions -- you do not need to register if you are submitting printed copies of your papers.
The body of a REGISTER message should take the form
authors: list of authors separated by "and" title: title of document contact: e-mail address of contact author notes: optional message for program chair [Optional]
The contents of the authors and contacts fields will be used in processing the documents, but will not be read by the program committee. The optional "notes" field may be used to include a standard mail address, for greater redundancy.
For example,
Continuation lines for the "authors", "title" and "notes" fields, if needed, should start with a space.% mail crypto99@sigact.acm.org Subject: REGISTER authors: Ronald L. Rivest and Adi Shamir and Leonard M. Adleman title: The RSA cryptosystem resubmitted contact: ron@nostalgia.mit.edu notes: 545 Tech Square, Cambridge, MA 02139 ^D
The server will return a name to use to refer to your submission (called the filename or key in the sections below).
From: crypto99@sigact.acm.org Thu Sep 8 19:18:41 1994 To: ron@nostalgia.mit.edu Subject: REGISTER You should use the file name "ron.1234.ps" for submitting the following paper: authors: Ronald L. Rivest and Adi Shamir and Leonard M. Adleman title: The RSA cryptosystem resubmitted contact: ron@nostalgia.mit.edu notes: 545 Tech Square, Cambridge, MA 02139 receipt:
TEST REGISTERLike
REGISTER, but the server returns a file name to use for
testing (you can use this test file name with all the messages below).
You may (but need not) specify the information on the paper (contact,
title, etc.). If you know that you are going to submit a paper, we
recommend simply using the REGISTER command.
SUBMIT filenameSubmit a paper. The body of the message should be the PostScript(tm) file. The server will acknowledge the submission. The acknowledgement will include an MD5-generated receipt for the submission, as well as basic information on the file so that you can verify that it arrived "safely". The basic information includes sizes (in bytes), checksum, first and last ten lines of the file.
For example,
% mail crypto99@sigact.acm.org Subject: SUBMIT ron.1234.ps insert postscript file into main body of message You may alternatively attach your file. ^D From: crypto99@sigact.acm.org Thu Sep 8 19:18:41 1994 To: ron@nostalgia.mit.edu Subject: Submission of ron.1234.ps received. Your paper with key ron.1234.ps was received on Sep 8 19:27. It is 404918 bytes long. Its checksum is 23036. The receipt is: abcba4232hgada43232323 It does not seem to generate any PostScript(tm) errors. The first ten lines of your file are: ... The last ten lines of your file are: ...
REVISE filename
Revise a previously submitted paper. The body of the message should be the
PostScript(tm) file. The server will confirm this revision with the contact person
for the paper (as well as the sender of the SUBMIT message).
The revision must be received before the submission deadline.
For example,
% mail crypto99@sigact.acm.org Subject: REVISE ron.1234.ps insert postscript file into main body of message You may alternatively attach your file. ^D From: crypto99@sigact.acm.org Thu Sep 8 19:18:41 1994 To: ron@nostalgia.mit.edu Subject: Revised version of ron.1234.ps received. A revised version of your CRYPTO '99 submission with key ron.1234.ps was received on Thu Sep 8 19:43:33 EDT 1994 Please send electronic mail to joe@research.nj.nec.com if you did not submit a revised version.
WITHDRAW filenameWithdraw a previously submitted paper. The server will confirm this withdrawal with the contact person for the paper.
For example,
% mail crypto99@sigact.acm.org Subject: WITHDRAW ron.1234.ps ^D From: crypto99@sigact.acm.org Thu Sep 8 19:18:41 1994 To: ron@nostalgia.mit.edu Subject: ron.1234.ps withdrawn. Your CRYPTO '99 submission with key ron.1234.ps was withdrawn on Thu Sep 8 19:43:33 EDT 1994 Please send electronic mail to joe@research.nj.nec.com if you did not withdraw your paper.
TESTPRINTTest printing of the PostScript(tm) file contained in the body of the message. The server will return a message regarding the success or failure of the printing process. The server does not test for full compliance with the submission guidelines, such as length, page size, etc. Hence, a submission may pass this test and still be rejected without consideration of its merits.
We have also found that some PostScript(tm) successfully passes through the testing process, but is not printable. For example, FrameMaker(tm) generates PostScript(tm) that is only printable on a particular size of paper (if generated for A4, it will not print on US Letter, and vice versa). All papers must be generated for US Letter paper.
Here is an example of the use of TESTPRINT
% mail crypto99@sigact.acm.org Subject: TESTPRINT insert postscript file into main body of message You may alternatively attach your file. ^D From: crypto99@sigact.acm.org Thu Sep 8 19:18:41 1994 To: ron@nostalgia.mit.edu Subject: TESTPRINT The file you sent failed with the following PostScript(tm) errors: ...
STATUS filenameCheck on the status of an electronic submission. This status refers only to its existence and printability, not to it's status in the refereeing process.
For example,
% mail crypto99@sigact.acm.org Subject: STATUS ron.1234.ps ^D From: crypto99@sigact.acm.org Thu Sep 8 19:18:41 1994 To: ron@nostalgia.mit.edu Subject: STATUS ron.1234.ps Information on paper with key: ron.1234.ps authors: Ronald L. Rivest and Adi Shamir and Leonard M. Adleman title: The RSA cryptosystem resubmitted contact: ron@nostalgia.mit.edu notes: 545 Tech Square, Cambridge, MA 02139 receipt: abcba4232hgada43232323 It is 404918 bytes long. Its checksum is 23036. It does not seem to generate any PostScript(tm) errors. The first ten lines of your file are: ... The last ten lines of your file are: ...
The server, and most of the people it was created by and designed for, work in a Unix environment. Not surprisingly, those working in a Microsoft Windows environment have had more trouble interfacing with the server. The problems are twofold: obtaining a properly formatted PostScript file and sending it to the server.
First, many Windows-based programs do not seem to know how to output PostScript themselves, but allow you to do so indirectly by printing the file, and using the print options. Here is what I did to get reasonable output from Microsoft Word.
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