Manuscript Typography

Manuscript Typography Audit

Pipeline position: Phase 2b (polish audit). Runs in parallel with manuscript-provenance. Depends on: content settled after Phase 1 fixes. See /manuscript-pipeline for full execution order.

Purpose

Audit a LaTeX manuscript for widely-accepted academic typographic conventions that directly affect readability and professional appearance. These are not venue-specific formatting rules — they are cross-venue norms from decades of academic publishing that experienced readers and reviewers notice.

A paper with solid content but poor typography signals inexperience. Reviewers form impressions from visual presentation before reading a single sentence.

Relationship to Other Skills

| Concern | manuscript-review | manuscript-typography (this) | arxiv-preflight | |---------|-------------------|------------------------------|-----------------| | Table content | Data quality, significant figures (§12) | Design: booktabs, alignment, headers, caption placement | Format compliance | | Figure content | Colorblind, axis labels, chartjunk (§12) | Design: font matching, backgrounds, subfigure style | Format/size compliance | | Rendered output | Legibility, float proximity, page breaks (§23) | Layout: widows, column balance, spacing, float specifiers | N/A | | Math notation | Notation consistency, operator formatting (§15) | Spacing, delimiter sizing, display vs inline choices | N/A | | Cross-refs | Citation hygiene (§11) | Reference style consistency, non-breaking spaces | N/A | | Typography | N/A | Dashes, quotes, units, micro-typography | N/A | | Polish | N/A | TODOs, placeholders, metadata, bookmarks | N/A |

Rule: This skill audits design and typography. manuscript-review audits content and communication. arxiv-preflight audits submission compliance. No overlap — each reads different signals from the same document.

Workflow

1. Ingest

Read all .tex files (main + \input/\include targets). Identify:

• Document class and loaded packages
• Two-column vs single-column layout
• Target venue (if identifiable from class/template)

If compiled PDF is available, use it for rendered inspection checks.

2. Audit Passes

For each check:

• FAIL — convention violated (document file, line, specific fix with LaTeX code)
• WARN — debatable but worth considering
• PASS — convention followed
• N/A — not applicable

---

Pass 1 — Table Design

1.1 Rule structure

• Use booktabs package: \toprule, \midrule, \bottomrule
• No \hline (replace with booktabs equivalents)
• No vertical rules (| in column spec) — vertical lines in tables are a hallmark of amateur typesetting
• No double horizontal rules
• Exception: if the document class mandates a specific table style, note but don't flag

% BAD
\begin{tabular}{|l|c|r|}
\hline
Method & Accuracy & F1 \\
\hline\hline
Ours & 0.94 & 0.91 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}

% GOOD
\begin{tabular}{lcr}
\toprule
Method & Accuracy & F1 \\
\midrule
Ours & 0.94 & 0.91 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}

1.2 Column alignment

• Numeric columns: right-aligned or decimal-aligned (S column from siunitx)
• Text columns: left-aligned
• Center alignment: only for single characters or very short labels
• Header alignment: matches column alignment or centered

1.3 Header formatting

• Headers visually distinct from body (bold is standard: \textbf{})
• No ALL CAPS headers (use bold or small caps)
• Units in headers: parenthesized or bracketed — Latency (ms) not Latency ms

1.4 Best-result indication

• If highlighting best results: consistent method across all tables (bold, underline, or marker)
• Define the convention in the first table's caption or a footnote
• Do not mix bold-for-best and underline-for-best across tables

1.5 Table notes

• Footnotes/notes below the table, not in the caption
• Use \tablenotes (threeparttable) or manual footnotes with consistent markers

1.6 Caption placement

• Table captions ABOVE the table (universal convention)
• \caption{} before \begin{tabular}
• Not below — below is for figures

1.7 Caption formatting

• Caption label ("Table 1:" / "Table 1.") in bold or small caps — visually distinct from the description text
• Caption description text smaller than body text — \small (one step down) is standard; \footnotesize acceptable
• Use the caption package to control this consistently:

\usepackage[font=small, labelfont=bf]{caption}
% label ("Table 1:") = bold, description = \small
% applies uniformly to all figures AND tables

• Never caption text at full body size — it visually competes with the main text and makes the document look untypeset
• Never caption text below \footnotesize — becomes unreadable
• Consistent across ALL captions (tables and figures use the same size/weight scheme)

1.8 Caption style

• Consistent prefix: "Table 1:" or "Table 1." — not mixed (controlled by labelsep in caption package)
• First sentence describes what the table shows
• Caption is self-contained (interpretable without body text)

1.9 Spacing

• \addlinespace (booktabs) for logical row groups, not empty rows
• No \\[6pt] manual spacing hacks inside tables
• Column separation adequate — use @{\hspace{...}} or \setlength{\tabcolsep} if too compressed

1.10 Long tables

• Tables exceeding one page: use longtable or supertabular
• Repeated headers on continuation pages
• No font-size reduction to force a table onto one page (below \small is unreadable)

---

Pass 2 — Figure Design

2.1 Caption placement

• Figure captions BELOW the figure (universal convention)
• \caption{} after \includegraphics
• Not above — above is for tables

2.2 Caption formatting

• Same size/weight scheme as table captions — the caption package applies uniformly
• Caption label ("Figure 1:") bold or small caps (matches table label style)
• Caption description text at \small or \footnotesize (matches table caption size)
• If not using caption package: verify manually that figure and table captions use identical formatting

2.3 Caption style

• Consistent prefix: "Figure 1:" or "Figure 1." or "Fig. 1:" — pick one for all figures
• Matches table caption style (if tables use "Table 1:", figures use "Figure 1:")
• Caption self-contained

2.4 Subfigure labeling

• Consistent style: (a), (b), (c) — not mixed with (i), (ii), (iii) or a), b), c)
• Use subcaption or subfigure package — not manual lettering
• Subfigure labels referenced consistently in text: "Figure 1(a)" not "Figure 1a" or "Figure 1 (a)" mixed

2.5 Font consistency

• Text within figures (axis labels, annotations, legends) uses a font that complements the body text
• Matching the body serif (Computer Modern, Times) or a clean sans-serif (Helvetica, CMSans) is standard
• Matplotlib/R/MATLAB default fonts are visually distinct from LaTeX body text — flag when obvious
• Font size in figures after scaling: readable at rendered size (cross-reference with manuscript-review §23)
• Figure-internal text should be comparable to caption text size — not larger than body text, not smaller than footnotes

2.6 Background

• White or transparent background — no gray plot backgrounds (matplotlib default axes.facecolor)
• No colored frame/border unless it serves a purpose

2.7 Aspect ratio

• Plots not stretched or compressed
• Standard aspect ratios: 4:3, 16:9, golden ratio, or square
• All panels in a multi-panel figure use the same aspect ratio

2.8 Consistent framing

• All figures use the same border/frame approach (all framed or all unframed)
• Consistent padding/margins around figure content

---

Pass 3 — LaTeX Typography

3.1 Dashes

• Hyphen (-): compound words (well-known, state-of-the-art)
• En-dash (--): number ranges (10--20, pages 5--12, 2020--2023). Common error: hyphen used for ranges ("10-20" → "10--20").
• Em-dash (---): parenthetical asides and emphatic breaks. Em-dashes are accepted by CMOS 18, APA 7, and MLA 9 in academic prose — flag the following instead of banning the character:
• Spacing inconsistency: CMOS/APA/MLA use closed em-dashes (text---text); journalistic AP style uses spaced (text --- text). Pick one and apply uniformly. Mixed usage = FAIL.
• Overuse: more than ~1 em-dash per paragraph or ~3 per page tips into conversational register. Flag clusters as WARN; suggest restructuring to commas/colons/parentheses.
• Misuse for ranges: em-dash where en-dash belongs (pages 5---12 should be pages 5--12) = FAIL.
• AI-tell heuristic (advisory only, MEDIUM): dense em-dash usage combined with other AI-pattern markers can indicate unedited LLM output. Defer to manuscript-review Pass 7b for that judgment, do not flag em-dashes alone as AI tells.

3.2 Quotation marks

• Opening: (backticks)
• Closing: '' (straight single quotes)
• Not "straight quotes" — renders incorrectly in TeX
• Nested: ` inner' ` inside outer'' `

3.3 Ellipsis

• \ldots or \dots — not three periods (...)
• \ldots produces properly spaced ellipsis

3.4 Non-breaking spaces

• Before \ref: Figure~\ref{fig:x}, Table~\ref{tab:x}, Section~\ref{sec:x}
• Before \cite: previous work~\cite{smith2020}
• Between number and unit: 10~ms or 10\,ms
• Prevents line breaks that separate a label from its referent

3.5 Ties and thin spaces

• Thin space between number and unit: 10\,ms, 5\,GB, 100\,K (use siunitx for consistency)
• No space inside parenthetical citations: \cite{x} not \cite{ x }
• No double spaces in source (harmless but untidy)

3.6 Semantic markup

• \emph{text} over {\it text} or \textit{text} — \emph nests correctly
• \textbf{} for bold, not {\bf }
• New-style font commands (\textbf, \textit, \textsf) over old-style (\bf, \it, \sf)
• \textrm{} for roman text inside math mode, not manual font switches

3.7 Micro-typography

• \usepackage{microtype} — enables character protrusion and font expansion
• Dramatically improves line breaking and margin alignment with zero effort
• If not loaded, recommend adding it

3.8 Special characters

• \& not & in text
• \% not % in text
• \# not # in text
• \_ not _ in text
• Degree symbol: $^\circ$ or \textdegree — not ° (Unicode)
• Multiplication: $\times$ — not x

3.9 Ligatures

• ff, fi, fl, ffi, ffl must render as proper ligatures (default in CM/Latin Modern fonts)
• Flag if \DisableLigatures or microtype ligatures=false is set globally without reason
• Some fonts break ligatures — if text renders "find" as "f ind" or similar, the font config is wrong
• Ligatures should NOT cross morpheme boundaries in some compound words (e.g., "shelfful") — minor, WARN only

3.10 Italic usage — three distinct purposes

• Emphasis: \emph{important} — for stress within a sentence
• Foreign words: \textit{in vivo}, \textit{a priori} — for non-English terms not yet naturalized
• Terms being defined: \textit{A convolutional layer is...} — for the first occurrence of a technical term being introduced
• Using bold, ALL CAPS, or colored text for emphasis in running prose = FAIL
• Consistent: if "in vitro" is italicized on page 3, it must be italicized everywhere (or nowhere if treated as naturalized)

3.11 No color for emphasis

• Colored text in running prose for emphasis (red for important, blue for terms) = FAIL
• Color belongs in figures, tables, and hyperlinks — not in body text
• Exception: hyperref link colors for cross-references and URLs

3.12 Sentence spacing

• LaTeX default: extra space after periods (end-of-sentence). This is traditional TeX behavior.
• \frenchspacing disables it (uniform spacing). Both are acceptable — but be deliberate.
• If using abbreviations with periods (e.g., "et al.", "Fig.", "vs.") without \frenchspacing, add \ or ~ after the period to prevent LaTeX from treating it as end-of-sentence: et al.\ or use \@. before a true sentence-ending period after a capital letter.
• Common bug: "...by Dr. Smith" — LaTeX adds extra space after "Dr." thinking it's end-of-sentence. Fix: Dr.\ Smith

3.13 Display vs inline math

• Expressions with fractions (\frac), sums (\sum), products (\prod), integrals, or matrices should be displayed, not inline — inline rendering compresses them and disrupts line spacing
• Short expressions (single variables, simple subscripts, brief equalities like $x = 5$) stay inline
• Rule of thumb: if the expression changes the line height, display it
• Display equations that are part of a sentence still need proper punctuation
• \[ ... \] or equation environment — not $$ ... $$ (which is plain TeX, not LaTeX, and has incorrect spacing)

3.14 URL handling

• URLs in \url{} or \href{} — never bare text or \texttt{}
• \url{} enables line breaking at appropriate characters (/, ., -, etc.)
• \texttt{https://...} does NOT break across lines → overfull boxes
• Load url or hyperref package (hyperref includes url functionality)
• If hyperref is loaded: verify breaklinks=true is set in \hypersetup
• Long URLs in bibliography entries need additional break points. Check for \UrlBreaks:

\makeatletter
\g@addto@macro{\UrlBreaks}{\UrlOrds}
\makeatother

• Without this, URLs with long path segments (common in blog posts and documentation) will overflow margins in the bibliography even when wrapped in \url{}

---

Pass 4 — Units and Numbers

4.1 Number-unit spacing

• Space between number and unit: "10 ms" not "10ms"
• Best: siunitx package — \SI{10}{\milli\second} or \qty{10}{ms}
• Consistent across the entire document
• Exception: percentages and degrees can touch the number (convention varies — pick one and stick to it)

4.2 Unit typography

• Units in upright/roman font, not italic: "10 ms" not "10 ms"
• In math mode: $t = 10\,\mathrm{ms}$ not $t = 10\,ms$ (italic)
• Compound units: m/s or m\,s$^{-1}$ — consistent style

4.3 Number formatting

• Consistent decimal separator (period in English)
• Large numbers: consistent thousands separator (comma, thin space, or none)
• Ranges: en-dash (10--20) not hyphen (10-20)
• Negative numbers: proper minus ($-5$) not hyphen (-5) in running text

4.4 Significant figures

• Same metric → same number of decimal places across all tables and text
• Cross-reference with manuscript-review §12 (content consistency)
• Precision should not exceed measurement precision

4.5 Percentages

• Consistent: "14.3%" or "14.3 %" — pick one
• "Percentage points" vs "percent" distinction when comparing percentages

4.6 Inline fractions

• In running text: \nicefrac{1}{2} or \sfrac{1}{2} (from xfrac) — not $\frac{1}{2}$
• $\frac{}{}$ inline disrupts line spacing by creating a tall element
• Display fractions (\frac) are correct in display math and equations
• Alternative: "1/2" is acceptable in informal contexts — consistent style across document

---

Pass 5 — Cross-References and Citations

5.1 Reference abbreviation consistency

• Pick one and use it everywhere:
• Full: "Figure", "Table", "Section", "Equation"
• Abbreviated: "Fig.", "Tab.", "Sec.", "Eq."
• Mixed within the same category is a FAIL
• Common convention: abbreviated in parentheticals, full in running prose

("As shown in Fig. 1" but "Figure 1 shows...")

5.2 Non-breaking spaces

• Figure~\ref{fig:x} — prevents "Figure" at end of line, "3" at start of next
• Eq.~\eqref{eq:x} — same
• This is the single most common LaTeX typography mistake

…

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: Mathews-Tom
• Source: Mathews-Tom/armory
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://mathews-tom.github.io/armory/

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.