Checks

Venues

Venue profiles (generic, thesis, paper, arxiv, double-blind), venue fields in overfull.yml, page-limit counting with an end label, anonymity checks, and AI-use disclosure.

The venue check applies the rules of the place you are submitting to. Overfull does not know every conference and journal. You choose a built-in profile and fill in the rules from the venue’s call for papers or author guide.

Profiles

Set one in overfull.yml, or pass it for a single run:

profile: paper
overfull check --profile arxiv
Profile Use for Defaults
generic Any LaTeX document Accessibility recommended, disclosure off
thesis Theses and dissertations Accessibility required (PDF/UA output), disclosure off, no page limit
paper Conference and journal papers Disclosure and accessibility recommended
arxiv Source packages for arXiv arXiv packaging rules on, accessibility recommended, disclosure off
double-blind Anonymous review Anonymity checks on, disclosure and accessibility recommended

No profile sets a page limit, and all of them accept any paper size. Set pageLimit and paper under venue:. All profiles run all five checks.

Fields under venue: in overfull.yml override the profile.

Venue fields

venue:
  pageLimit: { max: 9, endLabel: overfull:main-end }
  anonymous: true
  disclosure: required
Field Meaning
pageLimit.max Maximum number of pages that count.
pageLimit.endLabel Count only up to the page with this label.
paper Expected paper size: a4, letter or any.
anonymous Run anonymity checks.
disclosure required (a missing statement is an error), recommended (a missing statement is info) or off.
accessibility required (problems are errors), recommended (warnings) or off (check skipped).
arxiv Apply the arXiv packaging rules.

The full list is in the configuration reference.

Page limits

Many venues limit the main text and let references and appendices run longer. Put a label where the counted part ends:

... last paragraph of the conclusion.

\label{overfull:main-end}
\printbibliography

and set endLabel: overfull:main-end. Overfull reads the page of that label from the .aux file and compares it with max. A partial page counts as a full page. Without endLabel, every page counts. If the label is not in the .aux, the check reports page-limit-label-missing (warning) and counts every page. Going over the limit is page-limit-exceeded (error). The venue line of the report shows the count as “main text N of M pages (T total)”: N pages up to the label, a limit of M, and T pages in the whole PDF. Without endLabel it reads “T of M pages”.

If you are over, fix the content. Changing fonts, margins or spacing usually breaks the venue’s formatting rules and can get a paper desk-rejected. The fit-page-limit skill describes what agents may and may not do.

Anonymity

With anonymous: true (or the double-blind profile), Overfull checks:

  • the PDF’s Author metadata field (anonymity-pdf-author, error);
  • the content of \author (anonymity-author-named, error);
  • an acknowledgments section, which often names people and grants (anonymity-acknowledgments, warning);
  • phrases such as “our previous work” (anonymity-self-reference, info).

It cannot catch everything. Also check for other first-person self-citations, links to your own repositories or websites, file names and comments in the source if you upload it, and names in figure images.

AI-use disclosure

Policies on AI use in writing and reviewing differ between venues and change often. Read the venue’s current policy page before you submit. Some starting points:

For conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, CVPR and others), the policy is usually in that year’s call for papers or author guidelines. Universities set their own rules for theses; ask your graduate school.

If the venue requires a statement, set disclosure: required. The check then reports disclosure-missing as an error when it finds no disclosure in the document. It recognises a heading that mentions both AI and its use (for example \section*{Use of Generative AI}) or the label \label{overfull:disclosure} anywhere in the source:

\section*{Use of Generative AI}\label{overfull:disclosure}
We used ... for ...

The check confirms that a statement exists and is not a placeholder: text such as “TODO” or “TBD”, or fewer than 40 characters, is reported as disclosure-placeholder (an error with required, a warning with recommended). It cannot tell whether the statement is accurate or meets the venue’s policy. The write-disclosure skill lets an agent draft a statement from what actually happened in the repository. You must read, correct and approve it. See Responsible use.

arXiv

overfull check --profile arxiv adds rules for arXiv’s build system:

  • no absolute paths in \input, \includegraphics, \addbibresource and similar commands (arxiv-absolute-path, error);
  • no spaces in file names (arxiv-filename-space, warning);
  • no .eps figures when the build log shows pdfLaTeX (arxiv-eps-pdflatex, warning);
  • no minted or other shell-escape features (arxiv-shell-escape, warning);
  • a .bbl file next to the main file, because arXiv does not run biber (arxiv-missing-bbl, info).

arXiv’s own rules change; read its submission help before you upload. arXiv’s list of supported processors has not included LuaLaTeX (it lists pdfLaTeX, LaTeX and XeLaTeX).

The paper template handles this: it builds with LuaLaTeX by default and with pdfLaTeX for arXiv, using make arxiv or latexmk -pdf. The .eps rule reads the log it is given, so to check the pdfLaTeX build, point check at its files:

make arxiv
overfull check --profile arxiv --checks build,output,venue \
  --log paper-arxiv.log --pdf paper-arxiv.pdf --aux paper-arxiv.aux

The thesis and slides templates build with LuaLaTeX and have no pdfLaTeX build. Plan for this before your first arXiv submission with them. The prepare-arxiv skill covers comment removal with arxiv_latex_cleaner.

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