ACM Citation Format in Google Docs: Complete 2026 Guide

ACM — the Association for Computing Machinery — publishes most of the world's major computer science venues, and its citation conventions show up constantly in CS coursework even when the assignment never touches LaTeX. The official ACM template (acmart) is built for Overleaf, but plenty of instructors just want the same citation logic applied to a normal Google Doc: numbered in-text markers, an alphabetized reference list, and a few CS-specific extras like CCS Concepts.

The tricky part is that ACM's numbering doesn't work the way IEEE's does. IEEE numbers sources in the order they first appear in the text. ACM's default numeric style numbers them by where they land alphabetically in the reference list — so [1] might be the seventh source you cite, not the first. Miss that distinction and your citations won't match your bibliography. This guide walks through the full setup in Google Docs so the numbering, formatting, and reference list all line up correctly.

1. Page Setup and Typography

Official ACM proceedings use a two-column layout with Linux Libertine fonts, but that template is generated automatically in LaTeX — recreating it by hand in Google Docs is more trouble than it's worth for a course paper. Unless your instructor specifically requires the two-column camera-ready look, a single-column layout with the citation and reference rules applied correctly is what actually gets graded.

1. Go to File > Page setup and confirm Letter (8.5" × 11") with 1-inch margins.
2. Press Ctrl+A / Cmd+A to select everything, then set the font to Times New Roman at 11 pt (a reasonable stand-in for Libertine, which Google Docs doesn't offer).
3. Go to Format > Line & paragraph spacing and set spacing to Single, then choose Remove space after paragraph.

If your instructor does want the two-column conference look, Google Docs can fake it with Format > Columns > Two, but that layout fights with figures, tables, and page breaks constantly. For anything longer than a few pages, it's genuinely faster to draft in Overleaf using the free acmart template and export a PDF than to wrestle Google Docs into a two-column shape.

2. Title Block, Abstract, and CCS Concepts

ACM papers open with a few structured elements before the introduction. Course papers rarely need all of them, but the abstract and keywords show up often enough to be worth setting up properly.

Title, authors, and affiliation

Center the title in 18–20 pt bold. Below it, center your name at 12 pt, and below that, your department and institution in 10 pt italic.

Abstract

Add a bold Abstract heading, left-aligned, followed by 150–250 words covering the problem, approach, and key result. No citations belong in the abstract — it should stand on its own.

CCS Concepts and Keywords

ACM papers classify their subject area using the ACM Computing Classification System (CCS), plus a short list of free-text keywords. Many CS courses ask for this section specifically because it forces you to state precisely where your work sits in the field.

You can find the current CCS category tree on the ACM website and pick the two or three concepts that best describe your paper's contribution — don't just guess at the wording, since instructors familiar with the format will notice.

3. Section Headings

ACM headings are numbered with Arabic numerals rather than the Roman-numeral scheme IEEE uses. Keep the numbering consistent as sections grow:

A typical CS paper runs Introduction, Related Work, Methodology (or System Design), Evaluation, Discussion, Conclusion, and References. Apply Google Docs' built-in Heading 1 / Heading 2 styles first, then manually adjust the numbering and capitalization to match the table above.

4. In-Text Citations: Numbering by Alphabetical Order

This is where ACM diverges from IEEE and most other numeric styles. In ACM's numeric citation style, the reference list is alphabetized by author surname first, then numbered top to bottom. The bracket number you use in the text is whatever number that source ended up with in the alphabetized list — not the order you happened to cite it in.

• Single source: The proposed policy reduces miss rate by 18% under skewed workloads [7].
• Multiple sources: This mirrors results reported elsewhere [2, 5, 9].
• Author named in the sentence: Alvarez et al. [4] show that write amplification dominates at high concurrency.

Practically, that means you can't finalize your in-text numbers until your full source list is alphabetized. The safest workflow:

1. While drafting, cite sources by author name in placeholder brackets: [Alvarez], [Chen].
2. Once the paper is complete, alphabetize your full source list by first author's surname.
3. Number the alphabetized list 1 through n.
4. Use Edit > Find and replace to swap each placeholder for its final number.

Some instructors accept the author-date style instead (Alvarez et al. 2024) — ACM's acmart template supports both. If your course allows it, author-date sidesteps the renumbering problem entirely. Check your assignment sheet before committing to one system.

5. Figures, Tables, and Code Listings

Unlike IEEE, which puts table captions above the table, ACM style places captions below both figures and tables — one less rule to keep straight.

Number figures and tables in their own separate sequences (Figure 1, Figure 2 … and Table 1, Table 2 …), and reference each one in the body before it appears: “shown in Figure 1” or “summarized in Table 2.” For code, use a monospace font (Google Docs: Courier New or Consolas) at a slightly smaller size than body text, and give listings their own caption — “Listing 1: Cache eviction pseudocode” — formatted the same way as a figure caption.

6. The Reference List

Head the section REFERENCES, centered or left-aligned depending on your instructor's preference, and start it on a new page with a page break (Ctrl+Enter / Cmd+Enter). Entries are alphabetized by surname and numbered to match your in-text brackets.

Common reference formats

Conference paper:

Journal article:

Software or dataset:

Website:

Format the list in Google Docs

1. Type each entry as its own paragraph, in alphabetized order, with its final number.
2. Select all entries, then go to Format > Align & indent > Indentation options.
3. Under Special indent, choose Hanging and set it to 0.5".
4. Click Apply.

Include a DOI link for every source that has one — ACM venues are strict about this, and instructors who've reviewed for ACM conferences tend to check.

7. Final Checks Before You Submit

• Letter paper, 1-inch margins, Times New Roman 11 pt, single-spaced
• Title, author, and affiliation centered above the abstract
• Abstract is 150–250 words with CCS Concepts and Keywords below it
• Section headings numbered with Arabic numerals, styled per the hierarchy table
• In-text citations numbered to match the alphabetized reference list
• Figure and table captions both placed below, numbered in separate sequences
• References headed “REFERENCES,” alphabetized, numbered, hanging-indented
• Every source has a DOI or URL where one exists

Export as PDF (File > Download > PDF Document) and check the exported file, not just the editor view — hanging indents and page breaks sometimes shift on export. Confirm every bracket number in the body still points to the right entry after your final edit pass, since adding or cutting a source shifts the alphabetized numbering downstream.

One More Thing: The Writing Itself

Getting the citation mechanics right doesn't say anything about how the paper reads. CS students increasingly lean on AI to draft related-work sections and system descriptions, and that writing has a recognizable rhythm that AI detectors — and reviewers — are getting better at spotting.

AuraWrite AI rewrites AI-drafted sections so they read like your own voice while keeping your citations, numbers, and technical claims intact. Run your draft through the humanizer before you lock in the ACM formatting — it's much easier to humanize the prose first than to reformat around it afterward.

Conclusion

ACM formatting in Google Docs comes down to one rule most people get wrong at first: alphabetize your reference list before you assign numbers, not after. Get that sequencing right, place your figure and table captions below rather than above, fill in CCS Concepts from the real classification tree, and the rest — page setup, headings, DOIs — falls into place quickly.

Once the formatting is locked in, the only variable left is whether the writing sounds like you wrote it.

Last updated: July 16, 2026