Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (SST) referencing style for Zotero

Zotero supports the open source Citation Style Language standard and it is really useful for formatting in-text citations and reference lists to the exact specifications of journals that you are submitting your work to. But, it can be a little tricky to find the right citation style for conference papers.

The Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (SST) is the biennial conference of the Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association (ASSTA). The conference accepts submissions for 1-page abstracts and 4-page papers, the latter of which are published in the conference proceedings.

SST papers use a modified IEEE referencing style.

I have modified the IEEE referencing style in the Zotero Styles Repository to create a custom SST reference style to take the pain out of preparing SST paper submissions.

Download SST reference style for Zotero

Zotero minimalist referencing style for grant applications

I use a custom Zotero referencing style when writing grant applications. It is designed to save space, and uses the following features:

• In-text citations are denoted by superscript numerals
• Reference list has single line spacing
• No journal article titles
• Journal names are abbreviated
• No journal issue numbers
• ≥ 3 author names are listed as "et al."

After each reference, I have inserted two forward slashes to demarcate separate references. I have also bolded the numeral that precedes each reference.

Once the reference list has been created, you may delete the carriage returns so that each reference does not take a new line.

My grant writing Zotero referencing style can be downloaded here.

Create high resolution 300dpi images for journal publication... without PowerPoint

I have previously outlined how to create journal quality 300dpi .tif images in PowerPoint. This worked very well, and has helped a lot of people. However, this only works in PowerPoint 2003 and 2007.

The Problem
Users of PowerPoint 2010, as well as users of PowerPoint on OSX, are unable to join in on the 300 dpi goodness. For instance, in PowerPoint 2010, there is an option to scale images to 220 dpi, but that's not the same as 300 dpi, is it? In OSX, this functionality was included in PowerPoint 2008, but was removed altogether in 2011!

Here is a quote from someone working at Microsoft Support,

"Unfortunately, the "Dots per inch" option is no longer available in Office for Mac. If this is a feature you'd like to see in future versions of Office for Mac, be sure to send your feedback by clicking..." blah.

See here: http://www.officeformac.com/ms/.59bcff97/0

So, it looks like from now on in order to create high resolution images out of your Excel figures it will be necessary to use something other than PowerPoint.

The Solution
I propose a solution similar to what I have recommended for creating high quality conference posters. It requires that you have a PDF printer installed (below I use the example of Acrobat, but the concept applies equally well to other PDF printers).

Step 1: Create your graph in Excel. I recommend leaving the axes unlabeled for the time being to avoid distorting the text when resizing the figure.

Step 2: Print the image. With the image selected, select File | Print and then set the Printer to Adobe PDF (or whatever PDf printer you have) and select Printer Properties.

Step 3: Edit Image Settings. Edit the Images setting so that the PDF creation process will preserve the image in high quality without downsampling or compressing it. Click OK and optionally save your settings for next time. Print your figure to PDF.

Step 4: Extract TIFF image from PDF. Open your newly created PDF in your viewer of choice, and save 

the page as a TIFF, setting the resolution to 300 dpi.

Step 5. Add finishing touches to TIFF in image editor. Open the TIFF file in your image editor of choice (I use Paint.NET). Add labels to the axes and legend (tip: for the x -axis, it is easy to keep the labels aligned in vertical space by using the text tool only once and separating the labels using the space key to position the labels along the x-axis). Crop the image and save. The 300 dpi resolution will be preserved in your newly cropped TIF.

Create high resolution 300dpi images for journal publication... in PowerPoint

Update July 1, 2011: Dear users of PowerPoint 2010 and all users of PowerPoint on Mac OSX, due to popular demand, I have created a new post taking into account the limitations of newer versions of PowerPoint. Please refer to my new post on how to create high resolution images without PowerPoint. Users of PowerPoint 2003 and 2007 may use the techniques outlined below.
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Not many people know that you can create journal quality, 300dpi, .tif images in PowerPoint. Well, you can.

By default, PowerPoint compresses images and saves them at 96dpi. For most users, this isn't a big deal, but if you are interested in printing the contents of your slides, for example, as a conference poster or as a figure in an academic journal, 96dpi isn't going to cut it.

What is dpi?
Dpi is an acronym for dots per inch, and is a measure of printing resolution. Generally speaking, the higher the dpi, the better the printing will come out.

Changing the dpi setting in PowerPoint
The trick to changing PowerPoint's dpi setting, is that you do not actually change it in PowerPoint.
1. Select Run from the Start menu.
2. Type regedit into the Run box, and then click OK.
3. Once the Registry Editor has opened, navigate your way to the registry key for PowerPoint. This will depend on which version of PowerPoint you are using.

PowerPoint 2003: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Options

PowerPoint 2007: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\PowerPoint\Options

4. Select Options by clicking on it once, and then click the Edit menu, then New and then DWORD Value.
5. Type ExportBitmapResolution, and then press ENTER.
6. Select ExportBitmapResolution, and click on Modify on the Edit menu.
7. In the Value data box, type your desired resolution value: 300, then click Decimal (the value will change to 768), and then click OK.
8. Exit the Registry Editor.

Saving a high resolution image in PowerPoint
To save an image, you simply export a PowerPoint slide as a picture.
1. Have the slide that you want to export open.
2. Select Save As from the File menu.
3. In the Save as dialog, select the type of file that you want to export your slide as (.gif, .jpg, .png, .tif, .bmp, .wmf or .emf), and then click Save.

Why use PowerPoint to create images at all?
As I've mentioned before, a lot of people have Office installed on their computers, and universities often provide Office for their research students and staff. Because of its large user base, researchers often crunch their numbers and create their figures in Excel. Importing an Excel chart into PowerPoint is as easy as copy-pasting, and you may then save the figure as a high resolution tiff image, as outlined above.

PowerPoint provides another advantage, which is the reason that many conference posters are created in ppt format. The file may be saved as in native PowerPoint format, preserving the different objects. Need to insert a bigger arrow? No problem. Need to change the font size? Piece of cake. The advantage afforded by PowerPoint is its simplicity. It's easy to send the file to a collaborator, changes can be made, and comments inserted in text boxes.

Further readingUsing PowerPoint to Create High-Resolution Images for Journal Publications