> Should one break the author's name up into initials and surnames, so > that the order could be different in the main title and the running head > and/or different than the order in which the author would have put them you mean the running head might say "Einstein, A"? all i can say is that i have not been ever asked to do it... > I hadn't been thinking of the abstract as part of the front matter > (probably because it normally comes after \maketitle) but perhaps I > should be. if you consider a two column layout, with front matter set over both columns, it becomes important to know where front matter starts and stops. one of our journals puts the abstract as a footnote :-} > Other comments? What about the `affiliations' and other environments with > the label-reference mechanism? i didn't personally like the layout very much, but leave that aside for now. the important thing is whether people think the necessary information is all in place. re dates, i note that we support received, revised, accepted, and communicated. you only have 3 fields. by the way, i think that using multiple parameters in this, and other, macros is not very friendly. why not adopt the keyval syntax, ie \date{communicated=xxxx,revised=xxxx} which allows a more elegant way to omit arguments, and identify what you are doing. i know its just sugar, but it would make bits of what you suggest easier to read sebastian