Response-to-Reviewers Letter Template

This repository provides a LaTeX package and example for clear, point-by-point responses to editors and reviewers during scientific peer review.

The main files are:

• reviewresponse.sty — response-letter environments, numbering, references, metadata, and an optional page style
• main.tex — a feature-rich example with citations, equations, a figure, and a table
• references.bib — fictional bibliography entries used by the full example

Example output

Requirements and installation

Copy reviewresponse.sty next to your letter's .tex file and load it with:

\usepackage{reviewresponse}

The core package depends only on xifthen, xcolor, and mdframed, which are included in common TeX Live and MiKTeX installations. It does not load a bibliography package, citation style, quoting package, or page-style package.

The full main.tex demonstration additionally uses amsmath, TikZ, caption, csquotes, biblatex, Biber, and hyperref.

Citation-free quick start

This is a complete, standalone example:

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\usepackage{reviewresponse}

\paperid{ABC-2026-0001}
\papertitle[Short response title]{Full manuscript title}

\begin{document}
\reviewresponsepagestyle

\begin{center}
  {\Large\bfseries Response to Reviewers for Paper ID \printpaperid}

  \medskip
  {\large\itshape \printpapertitle}
\end{center}

\reviewersection{Reviewer 1}

\begin{question}[q:validation]
Please summarize the added validation experiments.
\end{question}
\begin{answer}[a:validation]
We added cross-dataset validation and clarified the runtime overhead.
\end{answer}

See \qref{q:validation} and \aref{a:validation}.
\end{document}

Compile it twice with pdfLaTeX so cross-references resolve:

pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error letter.tex
pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error letter.tex

Alternatively:

latexmk -pdf -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error letter.tex

No bibliography tool is needed for this citation-free workflow.

Core commands and numbering

Metadata

• \paperid{...} sets the manuscript identifier; \printpaperid prints it.
• \papertitle[Short]{Long} sets the long title and an optional short title.
• \printpapertitle and \printpapertitleshort print the stored title variants.

The package stores metadata but does not force a title layout. The quick start and main.tex show one possible front page.

Editor and reviewer sections

• \editorsection{Editor-in-Chief} starts the first editor sequence: E1.1, E1.2, and so on.
• A second \editorsection{...} starts E2.1.
• \reviewersection{Reviewer 1} starts the first reviewer sequence: R1.1, R1.2, and so on.
• A second \reviewersection{...} starts R2.1.

Section numbers follow command invocation order; the heading text itself does not determine the number. Start an editor or reviewer section before adding any questions.

Questions and answers

\begin{question}[q:scope]
The editor or reviewer comment.
\end{question}
\begin{answer}[a:scope]
The corresponding author response.
\end{answer}

The optional labels enable cross-references. With the current API, each answer should immediately follow its question; answer numbering mirrors the most recently created question.

For compact, unboxed entries, the package also provides:

\shortquestion[q:minor]{Please correct the unit.}
\shortanswer[a:minor]{The unit has been corrected.}

Cross-references

• \qref{q:scope} produces “Question E1.1” or “Question R1.1”.
• \aref{a:scope} produces “Answer E1.1” or “Answer R1.1”.
• \figref{fig:validation} produces “Fig. A1”.
• \tabref{tab:validation} or \tableref{tab:validation} produces “Tab. A1”.
• Use standard \eqref{eq:validation} for equations, producing “(A1)” when amsmath is loaded.

Prefixes such as q:, a:, and fig: are label-naming conventions rather than enforced types. All LaTeX labels must remain globally unique.

Equations, figures, and tables each have their own document-wide A-prefixed counter. Thus Eq. A1, Fig. A1, and Tab. A1 can coexist. Optional bibliography labels use another independent sequence.

Optional page style

The package does not replace the document class's active page style. To enable the supplied footer for the whole letter, use:

\reviewresponsepagestyle

This is equivalent to \pagestyle{reviewresponse}. The style has no header and places “Page N” at the physical horizontal center of the paper, including with asymmetric or two-sided margins.

For one page only, use:

\thispagestyle{reviewresponse}

Customize the footer contents before \begin{document}:

\renewcommand{\reviewresponsefooter}{Page~\thepage\ of the response letter}

If you do not activate the style, the package leaves the class or document page style unchanged.

Optional bibliography integration

Bibliography configuration belongs to the document. A typical numeric setup is:

\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=ieee]{biblatex}
\usepackage{reviewresponse}

\addbibresource{references.bib}

% Optional: display citation and bibliography labels as A1, A2, ...
\reviewresponseprefixbiblabels

\reviewresponseprefixbiblabels requires biblatex to be loaded before the command is called. It does not load or configure biblatex. The helper changes the displayed labelnumber field and is intended for numeric bibliography styles such as IEEE; author-year styles do not use that field for their citations. A different prefix can be supplied explicitly:

\reviewresponseprefixbiblabels[B]

Omit the helper if the bibliography style's normal labels should remain unchanged. The bibliography counter is independent of the equation, figure, and table counters.

For a bibliography-enabled document, the manual build sequence is:

pdflatex main.tex
biber main
pdflatex main.tex
pdflatex main.tex

Or let latexmk detect and run Biber:

latexmk -pdf -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error main.tex

Figures and tables inside answers

Standard figure and table floats are unsuitable inside framed question or answer environments. Use \captionof from the caption package:

\begin{center}
  \begin{minipage}{0.9\linewidth}
    \centering
    % Figure or table content
    \captionsetup{hypcap=false}
    \captionof{figure}{A non-floating figure inside an answer.}
    \label{fig:validation}
  \end{minipage}
\end{center}

Place \label after \captionof. The local hypcap=false setting avoids an inapplicable hyperlink-anchor warning for this non-floating caption. A minipage cannot split across pages, so put oversized figures or tables outside the framed answer or divide them into smaller artifacts.

Customization

Artifact names and numbering defaults are established when the package loads, so later preamble customizations take precedence:

\usepackage{reviewresponse}

\renewcommand*{\figurename}{Figure}
\renewcommand*{\tablename}{Table}
\renewcommand*{\thefigure}{R\arabic{figure}}
\renewcommand*{\thetable}{R\arabic{table}}

The default question and answer boxes are configured in reviewresponse.sty with mdframed.

UTF-8 and LaTeX engines

Source files should remain valid UTF-8. Normalize pasted text to Unicode NFC when an editor introduces decomposed characters; do not silently discard combining marks such as U+0308, because they may be part of legitimate names or multilingual text.

The supplied main.tex is configured for pdfLaTeX with fontenc and inputenc. For LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX, omit those pdfLaTeX-specific lines and use the Unicode font setup appropriate for that engine, commonly fontspec.

Tips and troubleshooting

• If a reference displays as ??, rerun LaTeX until references resolve.
• Keep every answer directly after its corresponding question.
• Avoid floating figure or table environments inside question and answer frames.
• The full example uses fictional metadata and references; replace them when starting a real letter.
• Citation link colors are controlled by the document's hyperref configuration, not by reviewresponse.