The sky is the limit.

Space-saving Artifices

1) \usepackage{times} will use Times font instead of the default, saving significant space.

2) \usepackage[small,compact]{titlesec} will modify section titles and the spacing above/below them, resulting in significant space-savings.

3) \usepackage[small,it]{caption} reduces the size of captions under tables and figures.

4) \def\Section {\S} allows you to replace the rather long “Section 5″ by §5 when you use \Section 5.

5) The itemize environment can be replaced by:

\newcommand{\squishlist}{
 \begin{list}{$\bullet$}
  { \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt}
     \setlength{\parsep}{3pt}
     \setlength{\topsep}{3pt}
     \setlength{\partopsep}{0pt}
     \setlength{\leftmargin}{1.5em}
     \setlength{\labelwidth}{1em}
     \setlength{\labelsep}{0.5em} } }

\newcommand{\squishlisttwo}{
 \begin{list}{$\bullet$}
  { \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt}
     \setlength{\parsep}{0pt}
    \setlength{\topsep}{0pt}
    \setlength{\partopsep}{0pt}
    \setlength{\leftmargin}{2em}
    \setlength{\labelwidth}{1.5em}
    \setlength{\labelsep}{0.5em} } }

\newcommand{\squishend}{
  \end{list}  }

Example usage:

\squishlist    %% \begin{itemize}
\item First item
\item Second item
\squishend     %% \end{itemize}

6) Bibliography can be shrunk as follows:

{\scriptsize
 \bibliographystyle{abbrv}
 \bibliography{references}
}

Replace \scriptsize by \footnotesize or \small depending upon your comfort level of font-shrinkage.

7) The standard \maketitle consumes significant space. Many conferences do not dictate a style-file for initial submission. Thus you could create your own compact title! What follows below is for \twocolumn articles:

 \documentclass[twocolumn]{article}

 %% The usual stuff that sits
 %% between \documentclass
 %%    and \begin{document}

 \begin{document}

 \twocolumn[%
 \centerline{\Large \bf A Randomized
 ID Selection Algorithm
 for Peer-to-Peer Networks} %% Paper title

 \medskip

 \centerline{\bf Gurmeet Singh Manku}
      %% Author name(s)
 \bigskip
 ]

 %% The rest of the paper (with no maketitle)

 \end{document}

Notes: \twocolumn is a TeX command. There is no \maketitle.

8) The affiliation and email of authors can be moved to footnotes with \thanks:

\author{Gurmeet Singh Manku\thanks{
             Computer Science Department,
             Stanford University.
             EMail: manku@cs.stanford.edu}}

9) Put multiple figures into one:

\usepackage{epsfig}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\epsfig{file=fig1.eps,width=0.5\linewidth,clip=} &
\epsfig{file=fig2.eps,width=0.5\linewidth,clip=}\\
\epsfig{file=fig3.eps,width=0.5\linewidth,clip=} &
\epsfig{file=fig4.eps,width=0.5\linewidth,clip=}
\end{tabular}
\end{figure}

10) A “Roadmap” section (found at the end of the “Introduction”) is usually redundant; most probably, your paper “flows” even if this section were completely deleted.

11) The bibliography file has the extension .bst. Several bibliography styles print full names of authors. It is possible to modify the .bst file so that only the initials appear. Look for a line that looks like FUNCTION {format.names}. Within that function, use the following:

{ s nameptr "{f{ }~}{v~}{ll}{,  jj}"
 format.name$ 't :=

Explanation: the .bst file format uses post-fix notation. The crucial piece is the string following the variable-name nameptr — this string specifies the format. Leave everything else untouched. With some more “hacking”, it is possible to get rid of months and to shrink pages to simply p. Check out BibTeX site for further info.