SPIE Smart Structures manuscript submission guidelines

Prepare a successful manuscript submission for SPIE Smart Structures + Nondestructive Evaluation

Increase your visibility and expand your network. Reach thousands by being published in the world's largest collection of optics and photonics research. Read the following information to facilitate the successful preparation and submission of your work. These guidelines include best practices for manuscript and multimedia submission for publication in the SPIE Digital Library.

Important dates

Abstracts due 13 September 2023
Registration opens Early December 2023
Author notified and program posts online 4 December 2023
Submission system opens for manuscripts and poster PDFs* 22 January 2024
Poster PDFs due for spie.org preview and publication 28 February 2024
Manuscripts due 6 March 2024
Advance upload deadline for oral presentation slides** 22 March 2024

*Contact author or speaker must register prior to uploading
**After this date slides must be uploaded onsite at Speaker Check-in

Manuscript guidelines

On this page

How-to guide for a successful manuscript submission

Format your manuscript

  • Length: Publish a two-page minimum in Proceedings of SPIE in the SPIE Digital Library
  • Color: All color will be retained in SPIE's digital publications at no charge
  • File type: The required file format is PDF
  • Margins, US standard size: 0.875 in left/right, 1.0 in top, 1.25 in bottom
  • Margins, A4 size: 1.925 cm left/right, 2.54 cm top, 4.94 cm bottom
  • Fonts: Use Times New Roman or equivalent for all text
  • Spacing: Single space all text in one column. Allow extra space between paragraphs
  • Please, do NOT add headers, footers, or page numbers

Manuscript templates

View and download Microsoft Word Template - US Letter (DOC):

View and download Microsoft Word Template - A4 (DOC):

View and download sample manuscripts in PDF format.
The text of these samples detail SPIE's format preferences:

Using LaTeX.
Style files are available to authors who are preparing manuscripts with LaTeX here:

You can also use the Overleaf authoring tool.
The Proceedings of SPIE template is now available in the Overleaf authoring tool. Originally developed to simplify LaTeX authorship, this free online tool has numerous benefits, including:

  • Real-time collaboration between authors
  • An intuitive user interface
  • Easy document sharing and security options
  • Real-time preview of formatting and equations
  • Inline error warnings
  • A rich-text mode that will look familiar to collaborators who are more comfortable authoring in Microsoft Word
  • Quick submission to SPIE proceedings by following the link "Submit to SPIE Proceedings" at the top of the Overleaf template.

The SPIE proceedings template can be found on Overleaf, along with helpful LaTeX tutorials and a free introductory course for authors who are new to Overleaf and LaTeX.

Submit your manuscript

  • Sign in to spie.org/myaccount to log in, or create an account
  • Click on "Manage My Active Submissions" and the name of the meeting. You will see your paper number (Ex: 10049-57), your paper title, and a link to submit
  • Note: You must be designated as the contact author in order to access, submit, and make revisions to the manuscript
  • Follow the steps as they appear in the SPIE manuscript submission wizard

Add multimedia files

You may associate a video or audio file with your research paper to better communicate your paper's main points. A video or animation, published online with your manuscript, can show how data changes over time, conveying more to your audience than is possible through a static paper alone.

Create a representative screenshot for each video or audio file and place them in your paper as you would a regular figure.

  1. Choose from one to ten short files you believe would enhance the reader's understanding of your paper's main points
  2. Multimedia files must be one of the following types:
    • Video: mpeg, mov (Quicktime), or wmv (Windows Media Player) file formats
    • Audio: wav, mp3 file formats
    • Each file should be less than 5MB in size
  3. Create a representative screenshot for each video or audio file and place them in your paper as you would a regular figure
    • Include a descriptive caption beginning with Video 1, Audio 3, etc.
    • At the end of the caption, include this line: http://dx.doi.org/doi.number.goes.here
    • SPIE staff will edit this text and link it to the archived multimedia file

Your multimedia files will be submitted through the SPIE manuscript submission wizard along with your manuscript.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Please do not submit a draft of your paper with the intent of later submitting a revised final version. If you are under pressure to submit your paper, but need more time, please contact your SPIE proceedings coordinator and ask if an extension is possible.

Manuscripts will be officially published within 6 weeks after the event in the SPIE Digital Library.

If a revision to your manuscript is requested, either by SPIE staff or by the conference chair, you will have three business days to submit your revision. To submit a revision, sign in to your account at http://SPIE.org/myaccount and click on the name of the meeting. Then, select the, "Submit Manuscript Revision" link for your paper.

Manuscript submission is expected and strongly encouraged. SPIE strives to ensure that the published proceedings accurately and completely reflect the program content.

Yes. A "Transfer of Copyright" should be completed and returned to SPIE when you submit your manuscript, or as soon as possible thereafter. Submitting the online form through your account at http://spie.org/myaccount is preferred, but you may download and email the PDF version if necessary. The copyright agreement protects both SPIE and authors/employers and specifies rights for both parties with respect to publication and reuse of the material.

SPIE publication policy permits manuscripts based partly or entirely on scientific content previously reported in SPIE Proceedings to be submitted to an SPIE journal. In most cases, it is anticipated that the journal submission will be a substantively expanded and revised manuscript relative to the proceedings paper to fully satisfy the standards of significance, originality, and presentation quality that may result in acceptance through the journal peer review process. For more information: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings-to-journals

Disclosure: If a manuscript (or portion of a manuscript) was previously published in a conference proceedings or is under consideration for publication in a proceedings, this information must be disclosed when the manuscript is submitted to an SPIE journal. Authors should also reference or acknowledge the prior proceedings paper within the submitted journal article.

SPIE partners with relevant scientific databases to enable researchers to find Proceedings of SPIE. They are indexed in Web of Science, Scopus, Ei Compendex, Inspec, Google Scholar, Astrophysical Data System (ADS), CrossRef, and other scholarly indexes, and are widely accessible to leading research organizations, conference attendees, and individual researchers.

SPIE guidelines for ethical publishing

SPIE guidelines for ethical publishing:

ChatGPT and AI tools authorship policy:

  • Because authorship attribution requires accountability for the submitted work, SPIE does not allow Chat GPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) to be listed as an author on a manuscript. If authors use AI tools when writing a manuscript, it should be disclosed along with all other tools used in the study in the Materials and Methods section of the paper. This section should describe which AI tool was used and how it was used. SPIE follows the guidance of COPE on this topic, which further advises that "Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics."

Policy regarding use of the Lena image:

  • SPIE no longer publishes submissions containing the Lena image without convincing scientific justification for its use. Authors are advised to use other suitable images to illustrate and compare image processing algorithms. Any author who chooses to include a Lena image will be contacted and the decision as to whether the image is published remains with SPIE.