Note: apa.cls is not in any way connected to, endorsed by, or even probably known at all at the American Psychological Association.
An article (in Greek) about apa.cls can be found in the first issue of Eutupon, the magazine of the Greek Tex Friends Group. An English article is in preparation to appear some time in 2006.
apa.cls is distributed under the terms of the LaTeX Project Public License (lppl). In short, this means that the software is copyright but you are granted “a license which gives you, the ‘user’ of the software, legal permission to copy, distribute, and/or modify the software. However, if you modify the software and then distribute it (even just locally) you must change the name of the software to avoid confusion” (quoted from The TeX Catalogue License Definitions).
The history of apa.cls revisions can be found in the CHANGELOG file.
Although this is a purely “free time” project for me, in general I have tried to be responsive about requests related to apa.cls and especially when bugs or other problems are involved. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you encounter difficulties or unexpected (or unacceptable) behavior when using apa.cls. However, I do ask that you make sure you have searched apacls.txt and examples.txt and failed to find an answer to your problem in there before you send that e-mail message.
apa.cls has a well defined scope and purpose, and I'm already too busy for it. Please don't request modifications or features that are not related to the stated purpose (which is to create manuscripts suitable for submission to APA journals and to typeset these same manuscripts in true journal look). For example, if you want the figures in the manuscript text but the rest as in man mode, then you're on your own as to how you might modify apa.cls (or not) to achieve that. In particular, if you want to write your thesis, apa.cls is not for you. Please do not write to me asking for help with this; your message will be ignored. Use apacite for APA-style citations and write your own typesetting code or search for a thesis class suitable for your University.
To use apa.cls, include one of the following at the top of your document preamble:
\documentclass[jou]{apa}
\documentclass[man]{apa}
\documentclass[doc]{apa}
You should not load the article class because it is automatically called by apa.cls. You should also not load any of the required or optional packages mentioned above using the command \usepackage because they are automatically loaded by apa.cls in the appropriate order.
\author{First Author and Second Author}
\affiliation{Department of Both Authors\\ University}
If there is only one author or more than one author but all in the same department, use the \author command as in the above example, with all names in its argument; and use the \affiliation command for the department. If there are people from two different departments, use the \twoauthors and \twoaffiliations commands to group them appropriately:
\twoauthors{First Author(s)}{Second Author(s)}
\twoaffiliations{Affiliation of 1st Author(s)}{Affiliation of 2nd Author(s)}
For three affiliations use \threeauthors and \threeaffiliations, and for four affiliations there's \fourauthors and \fouraffiliations. Five and six affiliations (and corresponding authors or author groups) are similarly supported (\fiveauthors and so on). If there are more than six departments involved you're out of luck with apa.cls and I doubt they would fit on the title page anyways.
In addition to authors and their affiliations, you should also define the following:
\abstract{Text of your abstract...}
\acknowledgements{Author notes, acknowledgements, contact information...}
\rightheader{Running head for journal look}
\shorttitle{Short title for manuscript header}
\leftheader{Left head for journal look}
These fields are not technically necessary for the document to pass through LaTeX, though they are obligatory for any real APA-style manuscript. If you don't define a right header or short title, they default to the title; if you don't define a left header, it defaults to the author name(s).
You may also define a note if you want:
\note{Date of current draft; or status; or additional address information...}
If you really want your document to have the journal look, you should also define the fields for the first page header, which in the journals hold reference and copyright information. In apa.cls there are:
\journal{Journal name}
\volume{Volume, number, pages}
\ccoppy{Copyright notice}
\copnum{Serial number or other reference}
The content of these definitions is ignored in man mode (manuscript look), of course.
After these definitions in the preamble, you begin your manuscript in the regular LaTeX way and invoke the command to make the title page:
\begin{document}
\maketitle
Do not leave a blank line between these two commands. Also, do not leave a blank line between \maketitle and the beginning of your (introduction) text, either. This is important for the correct typesetting of the first manuscript page.
If you need more or fewer heading levels, you can use the command \headinglevels{four} (or any number between one and five—spelled out—instead of four) and then use \paragraph and \subparagraph for the lower-level sectioning. Actually, if you need fewer than three levels you don't really need to do anything other than use only \section and \subsection, but if you do invoke the \headinglevels command, then the appearance of the manuscript will strictly conform to the APA guidelines for the fewer levels.
Note: Don't bother to \label your sections; since they are not numbered according to APA style, they cannot be referenced elsewhere in the document using \ref, so there is no point in labeling them.
Remember to use \label for floats after the caption (and not inside it!)
An image can be included in any way you like, but apa.cls provides a way to deal automatically with fitting encapsulated postscript (EPS) files without worrying about dimensions or mode. Just use the command \fitfigure instead of \includegraphics. For example, if you want to include a graph from file graph1.eps, the simplest (and recommended) way is:
\begin{figure}[tp]
\fitfigure{graph1}
\caption{This is the caption of the figure.}
\label{fig:fig1}
\end{figure}
You may include the image file extension (.eps in this case) in the \fitfigure or \includegraphics command, but if you omit it (as in the example), then if you happen to use pdflatex it will automatically load the corresponding .pdf graphic file (assuming you have made one with eps2pdf), while dvips will load the .eps file. In short, you don't need the extension, and leaving it out may make your life easier.
In case of a bitmap eps (as opposed to a graph or line drawing), you probably don't want it scaled in man mode, for best reproduction, so use \fitbitmap instead.
Note: If you want to include images in your manuscript, don't forget the command \usepackage{graphicx} in your preamble! You should not use epsfig or graphics instead of graphicx.
To match the APA-journal look you can use \thickline (instead of \hline) for the top separator (right after starting the tabular environment).
Because a paragraph break is inserted in manuscript mode (optionally with an “insert table/figure” note), don't define tables in the middle of a paragraph.
When using double column figures, it looks better in jou mode if you use \centeredcaption instead of caption, with the first parameter about equal to the width of the float (table or figure). This makes no difference in man mode.
If your table is too wide to fit upright on a manuscript page, load the rotating package and use a sidewaystable environment (instead of table). You need the special configuration file endfloat.cfg, supplied with apa.cls, for this to work.
Since longtable only works in single-column documents it can only be used with man mode. Unfortunately the conditional compilation (ifapamode) commands won't work to keep a single table body and apply a mode-specific (table or longtable) environment because of illegal cross-nesting with environment begin/end. In fact the table environment won't even work inside in ifapamode argument, which makes it impossible to have a single file that can be processed for both man and jou. This defeats the purpose of apa.cls, so only resort to longtable if you absolutely have to. You will need the supplied endfloat.cfg to use it.
\ifapamodeman{This is printed in man mode only}{This is not man mode}
You can also use the three-way switch:
The current mode is \ifapamode{man}{jou}{doc}
The manuscript format (man mode) uses Computer Modern by default but can use Helvetica or typewriter look by using the options helv or tt, respectively. I find the result with either of these much more “manuscript”-like looking, especially using tt (\documentclass[man,tt]{apa}), but that's a matter of taste. These options have no effect in modes other than man and may be left in when switching.
In the document format (doc mode), Computer Modern are used be default and should probably be used all the time since, after all, this is supposed to be the most “regular” LaTeX-like format.
You should count on using bibTeX with the corresponding apacite.bst style file for your bibliography. Citation commands include the standard bibtex options such as \cite but there are substantial extensions to cover other needs such as contracted vs. full author lists, author name only or year only for complex constructions, text preceding or following reference list in parentheses etc. For instructions on using the various citation forms and output examples get apacite.tex, testAPA.tex, and readme.apa from the CTAN mirror near you.
At the end of your document, before any appendices, issue the \bibliography command with the file names of the relevant bib files (standard bibtex usage). Do not use a \bibliographystyle command, because apacite is selected and loaded automatically (however, for backwards compatibility, any existing \bibliographystyle command is nicely ignored with a warning).
\section{Appendix Title}
to start an appendix (even if there is only one). Each appendix has its title, while numbering (“Appendix A,” “Appendix B” etc.) is taken care of automatically in case there are more than one appendices.
You are free to use figures and tables in the usual way in the appendix(es). apa.cls will number them correctly and include them in the table and figure lists where they belong.
You may use cross-references to appendixes, because they are numbered, if there are more than one. A command such as \label{app:xxx} after the appendix \section sets the label. Then you may refer to this appendix with
Appendix~\ref{app:xxx}
from anywhere in your manuscript.
\documentclass[man,babel,english,dutch]{apa}
If, however, your article is in English but you need support for Greek, for example to cite certain passages using \textgreek, then use
\documentclass[man,babel,greek,english]{apa}
instead.
apa.cls produces certain strings in the manuscript, mostly as titles to obligatory sections (pages): “Running head,” “Author note,” “Figure captions,” and “Footnotes” (other strings, such as “Abstract,” “References,” and the float labels “Table” and “Figure” are handled by babel and/or apacite). These strings are defined in external files, so new ones can easily be added. These files are named with the language name (as known by babel) and the extension .apa (for example, greek.apa). If the definitions for your languages are not supplied with apa.cls, copy english.apa with the new file name for your language, and edit the macro definitions inside the new file to display the correct strings in the new language. Send me the new file so it can be included with future distributions of apa.cls.
If you need to use additional options for article.cls, list them as apa.cls options and they will be automatically passed along to article.cls.
\abstract{Abstract text}
\acknowledgements{Author notes etc.}
\affiliation{Department\\ University}
\twoaffiliations{Affiliation of 1st Author(s)}{Affil. of 2nd Author(s)}
\threeaffiliations{...}{...}{...}
\fouraffiliations{...}{...}{...}{...}
\fiveaffiliations{...}{...}{...}{...}{...}
\sixaffiliations{...}{...}{...}{...}{...}{...}
\apamatrix{M}
\apavector{A}
\appendix
\author{Author Name(s)}
\twoauthors{First Author(s)}{Second Author(s)}
\threeauthors{...}{...}{...}
\fourauthors{...}{...}{...}{...}
\fiveauthors{...}{...}{...}{...}{...}
\sixauthors{...}{...}{...}{...}{...}{...}
\ccoppy{Copyright notice}
\centeredcaption{width}{caption-text}
\copnum{Serial number}
\fitbitmap[optional-height]{eps-filename}
\fitfigure[optional-height]{eps-filename}
\ifapamode{man-code}{jou-code}{doc-code}
\ifapamodeman{man-mode-code}{doc-or-jou-code}
\ifapamodejou{jou-mode-code}{doc-or-man-code}
\ifapamodedoc{doc-mode-code}{man-or-jou-code}
\leftheader{Author name list}
\journal{Journal name}
\maketitle
\note{Draft/submission date, etc.}
\rightheader{Running head}
\shorttitle{Short title}
\tabfnm{a}
\tabfnt{a}{Note text}
\thickline
\title{Title}
\volume{Volume, number, pages}