Polish Tables & Figures

Turn draft-quality LaTeX floats into the tables and figures reviewers expect to see at ACM / IEEE / NeurIPS-style / LNCS venues: booktabs rules, columns that fit the page budget, clean subfigure layouts, venue-correct captions, consistent

\cref

references, and colorblind-safe colors. Every change is presentation-only; the numbers are sacred.

When to use

"Make my tables/figures look professional" / "polish for camera-ready"
"Convert this table to booktabs" / "my table is too wide" / "overfull hbox"
"Lay these plots out as subfigures" / "fix my captions"
"Are my figure colors colorblind-safe?" / "pick a palette for this plot"
"Fix my \ref/\cref mess"
After
```
tailor-to-venue
```
, before
```
preflight-check
```
.

Inputs

The main
```
.tex
```
file (the one with
```
\documentclass
```
);
```
\input
```
/
```
\include
```
files are followed automatically.
Optional: a venue profile
```
venues/conferences/<venue>-<year>.yml
```
(schema in
```
venues/schema.yml
```
) — sets column count and caption conventions. Without one, conventions are inferred from the documentclass.
Strongly recommended: a compiled
```
.log
```
next to the
```
.tex
```
so the column-sizing (overfull box) check can run.

Process

Resolve venue conventions. If a venue is named, load its profile (sanity-check with
```
python3 scripts/venueyaml.py venues/conferences/<venue>.yml
```
). Re-verify format-critical facts against the live
```
cfp_url
```
before relying on them: template/documentclass, column count, any stated figure/table rules (minimum font sizes, color/grayscale requirements, accessibility requirements). Profiles are a starting point, never ground truth.
Lint everything first:
```
python3 scripts/check_floats.py paper.tex \
    --venue venues/conferences/<venue>-<year>.yml
```
Flags:
```
--json
```
,
```
--strict
```
(warnings also fail),
```
--log <file>
```
,
```
--overfull-threshold <pt>
```
,
```
--no-inputs
```
. Exit codes: 0 clean, 1 findings, 2 bad arguments. The linter covers: booktabs style (
```
\hline
```
,
```
\cline
```
, vertical rules, double rules, missing package),
```
\resizebox
```
/tiny-font scaling, caption position per family, missing
```
\caption
```
/
```
\label
```
/
```
\centering
```
/ACM
```
\Description
```
, label-before-caption, deprecated
```
subfigure
```
package,
```
width=\textwidth
```
in a one-column float at a two-column venue, raster graphics,
```
[h]
```
/
```
[H]
```
placement, undefined and unreferenced labels, mixed
```
Figure~\ref
```
vs
```
\cref
```
styles, "Figure \cref" double prefixes, cleveref load order, lowercase
```
\cref
```
at sentence start, and Overfull
```
\hbox
```
entries from the
```
.log
```
.
Fix tables — work through findings using references/tables.md: the mechanical booktabs conversion recipe (it preserves cell content byte-for-byte), then column sizing within the page budget (cut → abbreviate → align numbers →
```
\tabcolsep
```
→
```
tabularx
```
→
```
table*
```
— never
```
\resizebox
```
).
Fix figures — references/figures.md: width discipline (
```
\columnwidth
```
/
```
\linewidth
```
,
```
figure*
```
for spans), subfigure layout with
```
subcaption
```
, vector formats, font sizes inside plots, float placement.
Fix captions and cross-references — references/captions-crossrefs.md: per-family caption position/style table, self-contained caption writing, and the cleveref setup (load last,
```
capitalise
```
,
```
\cref
```
vs
```
\Cref
```
, one style everywhere).
Fix color — references/color-accessibility.md. Check the colors actually used in the paper (hex values from TikZ/pgfplots definitions, or sampled from included plots):
```
python3 scripts/palettes.py check 4477AA EE6677 ...   # arbitrary colors
python3 scripts/palettes.py show okabe-ito --format latex|pgfplots|matplotlib
```
```
check
```
simulates protanopia/deuteranopia/tritanopia and grayscale print, flags confusable pairs (exit 1), and the references file explains redundant encoding (markers + line styles, not color alone). If plots are generated by user scripts (matplotlib/pgfplots), edit the plotting source and ask the user to regenerate — never claim recolored results.
Recompile and re-run the linter until the verdict is PASS (or every remaining WARN is a deliberate, user-approved choice). Then hand off to
```
preflight-check
```
for the full desk-reject lint.

Output

Edited

.tex

(and plotting-script) changes applied in place with a short change log per float: what changed and why, citing the venue convention. Plus the final linter report (PASS / PASS-WITH-WARNINGS / FAIL). No new files unless the user asks for extracted style snippets (e.g. a

colors.tex

palette preamble).

Adapt to your discipline

Conventions here target CS venues (ACM/IEEE/ML/LNCS). Forking for another field: adjust the caption-position conventions in

references/captions-crossrefs.md

and the family mapping in

scripts/check_floats.py

(

convention_label

); the booktabs, sizing, and color guidance is field-agnostic.

Guardrails

Never change data: cell values, units, significant digits, axis scales, error bars, and legends' meanings are untouchable. Reformatting only. If a value looks wrong, tell the user — do not "fix" it.
Never fabricate venue rules. The profile and the live CFP are the only sources; when neither states a rule, label advice as general convention.
Do not regenerate or recolor result plots yourself; edit the user's plotting source and let them re-run it.
Bold-best-result formatting must come from the user's stated criterion, not your reading of which number "looks best".
Citation issues found along the way go to
```
verify-citations
```
; submission readiness goes to
```
preflight-check
```
. Never submit anything on the user's behalf.

polish-tables-figures

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content