Electronic Publishing at Astrophysical Journal Letters
A. Dalgarno, Letters Editor,
E. Avrett, Deputy Letters Editor

     The ApJ Letters Office currently receives a small fraction of
new papers electronically, but paper copies of such submissions are
sent to referees, by express mail or sometimes by fax, since most
papers contain figures and other material that are not easily
handled in computer readable form. Once a paper has been refereed,
revised, and accepted, faster publication  will be possible if the
Press is sent the electronic file along with the printed paper to
avoid typesetting by hand.  The AASTeX macro program should be used
for this purpose.
     ApJ Letters now maintains an on-line file of the abstracts of 
all Letters that have been accepted but not published.  (See the
inside back cover of the Letters.)  We hope that in the future it
will be possible to include full articles in such a file so that a
Letter could be available electronically in advance of the printed
version.
     The Letters Office has asked that the AASTeX macro program
include a formatting option that could allow authors to see
approximately how their paper would appear in the ApJ two-column
page layout.  This could help authors determine whether they can
lengthen their paper or would have to shorten it to stay within the
limit of four journal pages.