Modular CV

A Modular, Academic Curriculum Vitae/Résumé template in XeTeX

Motivation

Most LaTeX Curriculum Vitae/Résumé template provide well formatted sections and entry macros to create CV/resumes with fancy looking. However, the content and styles are highly coupled. If one need to create different CV/resumes for different purpose, he has to do many modifications.

This template attempts to be modular. Users can write their profiles such as education, work experience, and publications independently and create CV/resumes from these profiles efficiently.

Dependencies

We require XeTeX for CJK font support and BibTex for publication and citation support.

User Guide

Quick Start

Simply modify the example cv.tex file and the personal information in the tex files in content folder.

File Structure

The main tex file in the example is cv.tex. It structure is simply

\usepackage{modularcv}

% input tex files in content folder

\begin{document}
\makecvheader % create header and footer
\makefooter

\section{education} % make education section
\makeEducation

% make other sections

\end{document}

We can quickly change the content to display in this file. All details are defined in tex files in content folder.

Each file in the content folder use macros like \newXXX{key}{val1, val2, ... , valn} to define personal information.

Basic information

It defines the basic information for the header to display.

\name{firstname}{lastname}
\role{your title}
\address{your address}
\email{[email protected]}
\phone{(+86)18888888888}
% The following are optional
% https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XXXXXX
\googlescholar{XXXXXX}{your name}
% https://github.com/xxx
\github{xxx}
\homepage{https://example.com}
% any social link you expect to add
\social{<name>}[<icon>]{<url>}{<text>}

Education

Create a new education record in the content tex files

\newEducation{key}{
    {Ph.D.}, % commas are important
    {Computer Science},
    {Tsinghua University},
    {Department of Computer Science and Technology},
    {Beijing, China},
    {Sep. 2015},
    {June 2020},
    {Your advisor} % optional
}

Display educations in main tex file

\makeEducation

Research Experience

Create a research project record in the content tex files

\newResearchExperience{key}{
    {Project name},
    {Describe what the project aims to solve},
    {
        {highlight one},
        {highlight two}
    },
    {papercitation1, papercitation2}, % citations of papers in the project
    {ASPLOS, MICRO}, % top conference/journals the paper belongs
    {Tsinghua University} % affiliation
}

Display research experience in the main tex file

\makeResearchExperience

Work Experience

Create a work experience in the content tex files

\newWorkExperience{company}{
    {company name},
    {group},
    {role in the company},
    {location of the work},
    {June 2019},
    {Sep. 2019},
    {
		{Duty1 in the company},
		{Duty2 in the company}
	},
    {
		{Achievement1 in the company},
		{Achievement2 in the company}
	}
}

Display work experience in the main tex file

\makeWorkExperience

Teaching Experience

Create a teaching experience in the content tex files

\newTeaching{assemble2019}{
    {Course name},
    {Teaching Assistant},
    {Tsinghua University},
    {Fall}, % quater
    {2019}
}

Display teaching experience in the main tex file

\makeTeachingExperience

Award

Create an award record in the content tex files

\newAward{
    {XXX Award},
    {Agency give you the award},
    {Brief introduction of the award},
    {2019}
}

Display awards in the main tex file

\makeAward

Publication

This is the most complicated part. Publication has different types, we support conference, journal, workshop, poster, underreview, workinprogress, and patent types.

Each one has a citation key that can be cited in any place of the CV.

Conference, Workshop, and Posters

Poster and workshop is the same as confernece, but the macro names are \newPoster and \newWorkshop.

\newConference{citationkey}
{Title of the paper}
{Author1, \makeme{Your name}, Author3}
{International Conference on XX}
{ICXX} % abbr of the conference
{2019}{3} % year and month

Journal

\newJournal{citationkey}
{Title of the paper}
{Author1, \makeme{Your name}, Author3}
{Journal Name}
{JXX} % abbr of the journal
{2019}{2} % year and month
{18}{1}{38--42} % volumn, issue, page number

Under Review & Work in Progress

Work in Progress is the same as Under Review but the macro name is \newWorkInProgress.

\newUnderReview{citationkey}
{Title of the paper}
{Author1, \makeme{Your name}, Author3}
{Conference or journal full name}
{Abbr} % abbr of the conference or journal
{2020} % year

Patent

\newPatent{citationkey}
{Title of the paper}
{Author1, \makeme{Your name}, Author3}
{patent number}
{2016}{x}{xx} % priority date
{2019}{x}{xx} % grant date (optional if not yet)

List Publication

\makePublication[<filter>]

The <filter> is a boolean expression to check if a publication record should be displayed here. For example, to display official publications (conference and journal papers)

\makePublication[
	\equal{\pubtype}{conference}
	\OR \equal{\pubtype}{journal}
]

The \pubtype is a property of a publication record. Available properties are listed as follows

• \pubtype: one of conference, journal, poster, workshop, patent, underreview, and workinprogress.
• \pubkey: citation key
• \pubtitle: publication title
• \pubauhtors: comma separated author list
• \pubbooktitle: conference, journal full name or patent id.
• \pubabbr: abbreviation of the conference or journal (not avaiable for patent)
• \pubyear: publication year (patent priority date)
• \pubmonth: publication month
• \pubday: publication day of the month
• \pubvolumn: volumn for journal
• \pubnumber: issue number for journal
• \pubpages: page numbers for journal
• \grantyear: grant year for patent
• \grantmonth: grant month for patent
• \grantday: grant day of the month for patent

The \makePublication can be called many times to separate different publications in different sections. It will omit those that displayed before and their numbers are continues.

citation

Use \cite{<key>} to cite the publications anywhere in the CV as usual. The corresponding publication record must be displayed by one \makePublication.

Developer Guide

Key Concepts

Curriculum Vitae/Résumés contain a header, footer, and many sections or subsections. Each section/subsection contains many components. There are several kinds of components. Each of them has many formatted texts.

All these components composed of a BoundingBox that defines its padding and a Style that defines the font size, color, fontshape, prefix/surfix of the text. Each component that contains sub-components also need to organize the position of the sub-components.

Moreover, the contents of a CV/Resume usually contains contents such as Education, Work Experience. This contents are displayed using the sections and components.

Thus, we first develop a core library to provide a flexible way of defining component library that contains the definition header, footer, section, subsection, and different kind of components.

Then, we can further define a format library to define how to store different kind of contents and how to display them with component library.

Next, users can define their information with the format library. These information can be reused for different CV/resumes.

Finally, users can write the main tex file that defines which contents to be displayed.

File Structure

The modularcv.cls contains the definition of core library, the component library, and utilities. The styles of components are defined in style file in style folder. The style we implement is awesome style, which highly reference the Awesome-CV project. The format libraries are defined in format folder. Developers can easily add new custom formats in this folder.

Core Library

The core library are all in modularcv.cls. It defines the basic settings such as layout, color management, and font management. It also defines some data structures to create new components more easily.

Color

Colors are managed by xcolor package. We use normal, light, lighter, and theme as four basic colors. normal is the default color

Font

We use fontspec as the backend and define a more easy to use interface as color management

\definefontfamily{<name>}[<fontspecs>]{font}

Then we can use \<name> to apply the font for a specific content We can also define the default font by

\setdefaultfontfamily{<name>} % default roman font
\setdefaultsansfamily{<name>} % default sans font

User can switch between roman font and sans font by

\usepackage[sans]{modularcv}
\usepackage[serif]{modularcv}

Map & Sheet

The map and sheet are collection data structures to manage data more easily and clearly. map store key-value pairs and sheet also stores key-record pairs. The record contains many values, each value has a corresponding column name. Developers can develop map or sheet by macros

\definemap{<name>}
\definesheet{<name>}{<col-name-1>, ... , <col-name-n>}

The macros will create the following macros to access the map and sheet

% map
\new<name>{<key>}{<value>} % <value> is optional
\set<name>{<key>}{<value>}
\get<name>{<key>}
\loop<name>{<code>}
% sheet
\new<name>{<key>}{<value-1>, ... , <value-n>} % values are optional
\update<name>{<key>}{<value-1>, ... , <value-n>} % set entire record
\set<name>{<key>}{<col-name>}{<value>} % set one item in a record
\get<name>{<key>}{<col-name>}
\loop<name>{<code>}

The \loop<name>{<code>} is to traverse over the map or sheet in order (insertion order) and execute the <code>. The <code> can contain \loopk to refer to the <key>, \loopi to refer to the index, and \loopv to refer to the value. For sheet, we use \loopv{<col-name>} to get the correponding item. \loopbreak is used to exit the loop.

Note \loopv{<col-name>} will not be expand first. If you need to use its value for further processing, you can do like the following in <code>.

\edef\<somename>{\loopv{<col-name>}}
% use \<somename> instead in the <code>

Since \edef will completely expand the macro, any macros stored in the sheet that do not expect to be expanded should be protected by \noexpand. For example

\definesheet{Content}{col1, col2}
\newContent{key1}{
	{some sentence with cite~\noexpand\cite{citekey}},
	{other sentence}
}
\loopContent{
	\edef\firstcolumn{\loopv{col1}}
	\firstcolumn
}

Style

Define a style to format a text

\definestyle{<name>}{<fontsize>,<font>,<fontshape>,<color>,<pre>,<post>}
\definestyle{<name>} % empty style

Set the style

\updateStyle{<name>}{<fontsize>,<font>,<fontshape>,<color>,<pre>,<post>}
\setStyle{<name>}{<property>}{<value>}

Apply the style

\<name>style{Hello World}

The properties of a style including the following

• fontsize: font size (e.g. 10pt)
• font: font defined by the style file (e.g. \lightfont)
• fontshape: \bfseries, \scshape, \itshape, or combination of them
• color: one of normal, light, lighter, theme or other colors defined by the style file
• pre: prefix of the content
• post: postfix of the content

Box

Define a box to set margin of a content

\definebox{<name>}{<mode>, <margin-before>, <margin-after>}
\definebox{<name>} % empty box

Set the box

\updateBox{<name>}{<mode>, <margin-before>, <margin-after>}
\setBox{<name>}{<property>}{<value>}

Apply the box

\<name>box{Hello world}

The properties of a box including the following

• mode: h for horizontal box and v for vertical box
• margin-before: margin before the content (e.g. 1em)
• margin-after: margin after the content (e.g. 1em)

Show the boxes by add debug option in the class file

\usepackage[debug]{modularcv}

All the box will show their boders.

Component

Define a new component displayed in the document

\definecomponent{<name>}{<content>, <style-name>, <box-name>}

Make the component in the document

\make<name>

Component Library

The components are also defined in modularcv.cls. It contains cvheader, footer, section, subsection, and entry definition.

cvheader

To define the necessary information to create CV header

\name{firstname}{lastname}
\role{your title}
\address{your address}
\email{[email protected]}
\phone{(+86)18888888888}
% The following are optional
% https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XXXXXX
\googlescholar{XXXXXX}{your name}
% https://github.com/xxx
\github{xxx}
\homepage{https://example.com}
% any social link you expect to add
\social{<name>}[<icon>]{<url>}{<text>}

These name, role, and address are stored in map BasicInfo, and the rest are stored in sheet social. They all has the corresponding component to display them. The content of cvheader are composed of the \make<name> of the components.

To create the header

\makecvheader

footer

We use fancyhdr to create footer. It requires the title of the file and display in the middle of the footer

\title{<title>}

To create the title

\makefooter

section & subsection

Usage

\section[<icon>]{<title>} % icon is optional
\subsection{<title>}

The style and box of section and subsection is also named section and subsection. We can change the style and margin with them.

entry

Usage

\entry{<title>}[<comment>]{<subtitle>}[<comment>] % subtitle and all comments are optional

The default looking of entry is to display <title> and comment on the left and right side of the first line and <subtitle> and <subcomment> on the second line.

The styles for the four parts are entrytitle, entrycomment, entrysubtitle, entrysubcomment. The box for entry is entry.

Format Library

We define serveral widely used format library in folder format/. Users need to use the correponding package to load

Define your own format

A typical way is to define a sheet to store user data and create a command to create the content to display

\definesheet{xxx}{
	key1, key2, ... , keyn
}

\newcommand\makexxx{
	\loopxxx{
		% display each entry
		\entry{}[]{}[]
		\begin{itemize}
			\item xxx
		\end{itemize}
	}
}

Then user can define their content in a file content/xxx.tex

\useformat{xxx} % equivalent to \usepackage{format/xxx}
\newxxx{key}{
	val1, val2, ... , valn
}

And display the content in the document

\usepackage{modularcv}
\input{content/xxx.tex}
\begin{document}
% contents before
\makexxx
% contents end
\end{document}

Detailed formats can be seen in User Guide.