Manuscript Preparation: Use of either MS Word or LaTeX is acceptable for manuscript preparation. Please use the following templates and tools to help you prepare your manuscript:

• New! MS Word Template and Instructions on How to Create Your Paper (DOC, 92KB)
• New! WIN OR MAC LaTeX2e JOCN Style File (ZIP, 348 KB)
• WIN and MAC Bibliography File (ZIP, 208 KB)

Please note that the MS Word and LaTeX templates also serve as a style guide for JOCN. You should try to follow the style in these templates, particularly in regard to the numbering of section and subsection headings, table preparation, and references.

A Note About Author Bios: You have the option of supplying a biography with or without a picture of each author of your paper. You may supply the bios along with pictures in the MS Word or LaTeX file at the time of submission, but please note that you will be asked to supply eps or tif files of the author pictures during the final preproduction review. You will receive further instructions about the image files at that time, but you can review the guidelines for the bios and pictures in the Instructions for Supplying Author Bios and Photos.

Manuscript Submission: Manuscripts should be submitted to JOCN through OSA's Prism article tracking system. OSA will manage the peer-review and production processes for JOCN. Questions about print copies should be directed to IEEE Customer Service.

• JOCN does not have mandatory length charges for papers 10 printed pages or less. However, if your paper is 11-15 pages, you will be assessed a $220 per page charge for pages 11-15 by IEEE upon publication. For example, 12 pages = 2 x $220 or $440. Articles exceeding 15 pages will not be published unless prior approval is obtained from the Editors-in-Chief and will be subject to page charges for all pages beyond the first 10.
• JOCN authors can log in to OSA's Prism article tracking system to submit a manuscript or check manuscript status (see Prism login link below).
• General information for authors is available on the Optics InfoBase author page. (Please note, however, that the style guide and templates found there do not apply to JOCN. Please use the templates found here on this page for JOCN.)
• At the time of submission please identify your paper as either (1) Architectural and theoretic system designs or (2) Experimental systems. Also, please select 2 to 6 OCIS codes for your paper. (These will not appear in the paper, but will be used to aid reviewer search and for cataloging and searching in Optics InfoBase.)