Getting latex to work at journals

I got good news about a manuscript being accepted today, but I was reminded again how painful it can be to get journals to accept LaTeX source. Sometimes I wonder if I waste as much time in wrangling journals as I save in writing by using tex and bibtex.

I routinely have manuscripts bounced back by editorial assistants who ask "Why can't I edit your PDF? Can you send me the word source?" Hopefully policies like Elsevier's Your Paper Your Way and the PNAS equivalent, "express submission," will promote a new norm for first submissions.

For my own memory as much as anyone else, here are some tips for getting Elsevier's maddening EES to accept tex source:

• Uploading an archive with all files never has worked for me, so I skip this step
• Use elsarticle.cls and the included model5-names.bst for formatting and APA-style references
• Upload both .bib AND .bbl files as supplementary information (this was the tricky one!) – why would this be necessary?
• Upload all figures separately; PDF format has worked for me though EPS is requested.

Also, if you have uploaded a version of a file and then want to replace it, be careful to rename it. EES keeps the oldest version of a file so it will not update if you upload a newer version (totally idiotic).