latex-academic

Use the elsarticle document class, for example \documentclass[review,3p,times]{elsarticle}, with the elsarticle-num or model5-names bibliography style. Download the journal's official template first rather than hand-rolling formatting the class already provides.

BibTeX with natbib is the classic route most publisher styles ship with, using \citep and \citet commands. BibLaTeX with biber is the modern, more flexible option using \autocite and \printbibliography. Pick one route and never mix them.

Citation placeholders appear when the bibliography step has not run. Compile in the order pdflatex, bibtex, pdflatex, pdflatex, and verify the .bib key exists and the bibliography style matches your venue.

Overfull hbox warnings come from long URLs or unbreakable words exceeding line width. Use \sloppy, the microtype package, or the url package with \url{} to allow line breaking.

pdfLaTeX often fails on Unicode input. Switch the compiler to LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX with fontspec for full Unicode and custom font support, or escape the problematic characters.