A LaTeX + R set-up to handle abstracts for a conference and produce an abstracts booklet.

This particular concoction has been in use since 2005 (with continuous polishing) to make abstract booklets for the Ialian Mammal Society congresses (http://www.mammiferi.org).

History

I did, at that time (circa 2005), some research on available "abstract booklet" LaTeX packages/toolchains, and I decided to use the abstbook class. Some references here:

• the abstbook class on CTAN: http://ctan.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/CTAN/macros/latex/contrib/misc/abstbook.cls
• a thread on Mac OSX TeX thatr gave me some inspiration: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/2004-March/005037.html

How it works

I decided to start from the abstbook class, bit with some kinks, modifying it to use KOMA-script scrreprt class, which I personally find more flexible than article.

Actually, ot have a full (i.e. printer-ready) booklet, three separate files are needed:

• the cover
• the spine
• the book itself

Most of the material used here is borrowed from another project, that is the LaTeX code base used to typeset a scientific Journal (see: http://www.italian-journal-of-mammalogy.it/), that is a class called hysarticle.

Note that the new hysabstract.cls class is intended to typeset just the "mainmatter" of an abstract booklet. Actually, one can have just a single LaTeX source for an abstracts booklet, but "the hysarticle way" works lihe that:

• cover: is made using cover.tex (based on the beautiful memoir class) using files in the frontmatter directory.
• front matter: is made using frontmatter.tex (based as well on memoir) using files in the frontmatter directory.
• spine: is made using spine.tex, in the 'frontmatter' folder as well.

Tnis means that you'll have an Hystrix abstrsct booklet supplement issue source tree organised like that: | +---- main.tex (the master file that includes abstracts and outputs the abstract booklet) | +---- test.tex (a bare-bones version of the master file, used to compile a single abstract) +---- frontmatter (all the stuff needed for cover, frontmatter and spine, like an standard Hystrix issue) | +---- cover.tex | +---- frontmatter.tex +---- abstracts | +----(single abstracts, each one as a separate .tex file to be included in main.tex) |