latex masters thesis template

The MIT thesis template in LaTeX

The latex template.

The current MIT thesis template was developed in 2023, using up-to-date LaTeX coding, to meet the current formatting requirements of the MIT Libraries. The title and abstract pages are automatically laid out from information provided by the user. This template includes options to use a variety of fonts, and it is compatible with either pdfTeX or unicode engines such as luaLaTeX. When using LaTeX formats dated November 2022 or later, the resulting pdf file meets the PDF/A-2b archivability standard. A standard TeX Live installation includes all other packages required by the template.

This template was written by John Lienhard at the request of the MIT Libraries.

• Documentation: Documentation for the template is available in pdf format here .
• Download: The most current LaTeX files for this template are distributed through the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN): https://ctan.org/pkg/mitthesis Download
• Overleaf.com: A copy of the thesis template is also present in Overleaf.com's template gallery, here . Overleaf includes all the packages in TeX Live, so no additional downloads are needed. Learn more about Overleaf at MIT .

Specifications for MIT theses

The formatting requirements for MIT theses are set by the MIT Libraries, as described at this url: http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/thesis-specs/ . Questions regarding these specifications should be directed to [email protected] .

The original LaTeX 2.09 template was written by Stephen Gildea in the late 1980s (also in CTAN, here ). That template was edited by many later students, leading to the files archived here.

LaTeX has changed greatly since the original MIT thesis template was written. LaTeX 2.09 was replaced by LaTeX2e in 1994. New engines were developed, particularly pdfTeX during the 1990s and Unicode-aware engines in the decades that followed. Many packages and fonts were developed to accompany the original platform, particularly after 2000; and major updates to the LaTeX kernel began in 2018. Over the years, the MIT Libraries have changed the required format several times, especially as electronic thesis submission has become the norm. The original template served MIT well; but by the early 2020s, it was substantially out of date. That situation motivated the creation of this new template.

A LaTeX template for thesis, dissertations and similar monograph-like documents

View the Project on GitHub joaomlourenco/novathesis

• Download ZIP File
• Download TAR Ball
• View On GitHub

With a Local LaTeX Installation

With a remote cloud-based service, problems and difficulties, suggestions, bugs and feature requests, word templates.

If you choose to use this project, please:

• Give it a star by clicking the (⭐️) at the top right of the project’s page .
• Make a small donation ( pay me a beer! )
• Cite the NOVAthesis manual in your thesis/dissertation (e.g., in the acknowledgments) with \cite{novathesis-manual} (the correct bibliographic reference will be added automatically).

The “ novathesis ” LaTeX template is an Open Source project for writing thesis, dissertations, and other monograph-like documents, which…

• Just select the School, provide the cover info, your chapters with text… and you’re done!
• It’s LaTeX! What would you expect?! 😉
• E.g., multiple chapter styles, multiple font styles, automatic book spine generation, …
• Currently supports +20 Schools, drawing the covers and typesetting the text according to the rules of each School.

This work is licensed under the LaTeX Project Public License v1.3c. To view a copy of this license, visit the LaTeX project public license .

Getting Started

See below for alternatives to a local LaTeX installation

See “ minimal installation ” for instructions on how to build/use a minimal installation of LaTeX (<100 MB vs. 5GB for tex-live), which is just enough to compile the template successfully

• Windows: install TeX-Live or MikTeX .
• Linux: install TeX-Live or MikTeX .
• macOS: install MacTeX (a macOS version of TeX-Live ) or MikTeX .
• Cloning the GitHub repository with git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/joaomlourenco/novathesis.git ; or
• Downloading the latest version from the GitHub repository as a Zip file
• The main file is named “ template.tex ”.
• Either load it in your favorite LaTeX text editor or compile it in the terminal with latexmk -shell-escape -file-line-error -pdf template . If you use a LaTeX text editor, please notice that the NOVAthesis template uses biber and not bibtex to process the bibliography, which means that most probably you have to open the Editor Preferences and somewhere (depends on the Editor) change bibtex to biber .
• If Murphy is elsewhere, LaTeX will create the file “ template.pdf ”, which you may open with your favorite PDF viewer.
• Edit the files in the “ Config ” folder:
• See 3. above.
• You’re done with a beautifully formatted thesis/dissertation! 😃

See above for using a local installation of LaTeX

NOVAthesis v6.10.10 is available as an Overleaf template . Just select open as template and follow from step 3 above !

• Download the latest version from the GitHub repository as a Zip file .
• Login to your favorite LaTeX cloud service. I recommend Overleaf but there are alternatives (these instructions apply to Overleaf and you’ll have to adapt for other providers).
• In the menu select New project -> Upload project
• Upload the zip with all the “novathesis” files.
• Select “ template.tex ” as the main file.
• Follow from step 3 above

• Install LaTeX in your computer and use a the template locally !
• Opt for a hassle free solution and buy a (student) plan in Overleaf .

Getting Help

Check the wiki and have some hope! :smile:

If you couldn’t find what you were looking for, ask for help in:

• The GitHub Discussions page (only EN please) at https://github.com/joaomlourenco/novathesis/discussions.
• The Facebook page (PT or EN) at https://www.facebook.com/groups/novathesis.
• The Reddit novathesis community at r/novathesis .
• You may also give a look at the novathesis blog at https://novathesis.blogspot.pt .

Please don’t try to contact me directly for questions or support, by email or any other channel! I will not answer such requests… The GitHub Discussions page and the Facebook page are the right places to ask for help and support!

• Do you have a suggestion? Please add it to the wiki and help other users!
• Did you find a bug? Please open an issue . Thanks!
• Would you like to request a new feature (or support of a new School)? Please open an issue . Thanks!

List of Supported Schools

• NOVA School for Science and Technology (FCT-NOVA)
• PhD in Information Management
• Master in Geographical Information Systems and Science
• Master in Statistics and Information Management
• Master in Information Management
• Master in Geospatial Technologies
• Master in Data Science and Advanced Analytics
• Masters in Geospatial Technologies
• National School of Public Heath (ENSP-NOVA)
• Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCSH-NOVA)
• Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biologica Antonio Xavier (ITQB-NOVA)
• Instituto Superior Técnico (IST-ULISBOA)
• Faculdade de Ciências (FC-ULISBOA)
• Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária (FMV-ULISBOA)
• Escola de Arquitetura (EA-UMIMHO)
• Escola de Ciências (EC-UMIMHO)
• Escola de Direito (ED-UMIMHO)
• Escola de Economia e Gestão (EEG-UMIMHO)
• Escolha de Engenharia (EE-UMIMHO)
• Escola de Medicina (EM-UMIMHO)
• Escola de Psicologia (EP-UMIMHO)
• Escola Superior de Enfermagem (ESE-UMIMHO)
• Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS-UMIMHO)
• Instituto de Educação (IE-UMIMHO)
• Instituto de Letras e Ciências Humanas (ILCH-UMIMHO)
• Instituto de Investigação em Biomateriais, Biodegradáveis e Biomiméticos (I3Bs-UMIMHO)

Departamento de Engenharia Informática e Sistemas de Informação (ULHT-DEISI)

<!– * ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa

Escola de Tecnologia e Arquitectura (ETA-ISCTE-IUL) NOTE: this template is outdated (there are new covers/specifications) –>

• Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (ISEL-IPL)

Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal

• Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Barreiro (ESTB-IPS)
• Escola Superior de Enfermagem do Porto (ESEP)

Although the template goes far beyond the cover… some covers from the supported schools are is display below.

These are not official templates for FCT-NOVA nor any other School, although we have done our best to make it fully compliant to each School regulations for thesis/dissertation presentation.

All contributors , both sporadic and regular, are welcome. :) Please contact me to join the team.

If you are here looking for the (deprecated) Word templates (not maintained anymore), please go to this other repository .

Graduate Education

Office of graduate and postdoctoral education, thesis templates.

The following thesis format templates should help you get started with formatting your thesis or dissertation. Georgia Tech provides free Overleaf Professional accounts for all students, faculty, and staff who would like to use the collaborative, online LaTeX editor for their projects.

• LaTeX Template (.zip) - updated May 2020
• Featured LaTeX templates on Overleaf
• Word Thesis Template (.docx) - updated August 2016

LaTeX Resources

• LaTeX Project
• Set the Quick Build command configuration to: “PdfLaTeX + Bib(la)tex) + PdfLaTeX (x2) + View Pdf”.
• Use the Quick Build command to compile and view your .pdf file.
• If you decide to use a “build” subdirectory for output files, you must point BibTeX to the proper subdirectory.

LaTeX is a powerful text processing and formatting tool that produces clean, consistent results. This high-quality typesetting system is a free service provided by Georgia Tech. It is available on many platforms and can be used with the editor of your choice. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents.

Although Graduate Education does not offer direct technical support, Tech does provide help via campus partners such as the Library and Overleaf (online LaTeX editor). Please check the Library events page for courses on LaTex, or contact Overleaf directly.

Many students have also found useful tips for dealing with specific problems by entering keywords such as "LaTeX formatting table captions" in their favorite search engines.

Most Common LaTeX to PDF Problem

The most common problem we see with Electronic Theses & Dissertations (ETDs) created in LaTeX is the altering of the page size, particularly an increase of the bottom margin to more than one inch, and sometimes an accompanying decrease in the top and/or right margins to less than the requisite one inch. Less frequently, there will also be problems with figures disappearing or changing appearance. The sizing error may be introduced inadvertently during the conversion from .dvi to .pdf or .ps when the program doing the converting defaults to the A4 European page size. Always check your PDF file after conversion, even if your source file looked perfect.

The following fixes have been found by your fellow Tech graduate students and passed along to the Graduate Thesis Office. We hope they help you:

• First, before converting the .tex file to .dvi, make sure the class header file in your .tex file says something like "\documentclass[12pt, letter]{article}".
• If you are converting the resulting .dvi file to a .ps file, be sure the dvips options specify "-P pdf -t letter".
• When you are converting to .pdf from either the .dvi file directly or from a .ps file, locate the C:\texmf\dvipdfm\config\config\ or analogous folder for PDFs in your system. Replace the line "p a4" with "p letter".

Check our frequently asked questions (FAQ) to see if your question has already been answered. Else, contact Graduate Education at [email protected] .

Accessibility Information

Download Microsoft Products   >      Download Adobe Reader   >

Overleaf for LaTeX Theses & Dissertations: Home

• Using Templates on Overleaf
• Reference Managers and Overleaf
• Adding Tables, Images, and Graphs

Tips and tools for writing your LaTeX thesis or dissertation in Overleaf, including templates, managing references , and getting started guides.

Managing References

BibTeX is a file format used for lists of references for LaTeX documents. Many citation management tools support the ability to export and import lists of references in .bib format. Some reference management tools can generate BibTeX files of your library or folders for use in your LaTeX documents.

LaTeX on Wikibooks has a Bibliography Management page.

Find list of BibTeX styles available on Overleaf here

View a video tutorial on how to include a bibliography using BibTeX  here

Collaborate with Overleaf

Collaboration tools

• One version of your project accessible to collaborators via a shared link or email invitation
• Easily select the level of access for collaborators (view, edit, or owner access)
• Real-time commenting speeds up the review process
• Tracked changes and full history view help to see contributions from collaborators
• Labels help to organize and compare different versions
• Chat in real time with collaborators right within the project

How to get started writing your thesis in LaTeX

Writing a thesis or dissertation in LaTeX can be challenging, but the end result is well worth it - nothing looks as good as a LaTeX-produced pdf, and for large documents it's a lot easier than fighting with formatting and cross-referencing in MS Word. Review this video from Overleaf to help you get started writing your thesis in LaTeX, using a standard thesis template from the Overleaf Gallery .

You can upload your own thesis template to the Overleaf Gallery if your university provides a set of LaTeX template files or you may find your university's thesis template already in the Overleaf Gallery.

This video assumes you've used LaTeX before and are familiar with the standard commands (see our other tutorial videos  if not), and focuses on how to work with a large project split over multiple files.

Add Institutional Library contact info here.

Contact Overleaf   or email [email protected]

5-part Guide on How to Write a Thesis in LaTeX

5-part LaTeX Thesis Writing Guide

Part 1: Basic Structure corresponding  video

Part 2: Page Layout corresponding  video

Part 3: Figures, Subfigures and Tables   corresponding video

Part 4: Bibliographies with Biblatex corresponding video

Part 5: Customizing Your Title Page and Abstract corresponding video

ShareLaTeX Joins Overleaf!

Read more about Overleaf and ShareLaTeX joining forces here

Link your ORCiD ID

Link your ORCiD account to your Overleaf account.

See Overleaf news   on  our blog.

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• Last Updated: May 18, 2021 1:57 PM
• URL: https://overleaf.libguides.com/Thesis

An academic thesis, also known as a dissertation, is a substantial work produced by a graduate student to communicate their research and earn a degree. A thesis will typically include a review of the current state of research in the field of study followed by a central hypothesis to be investigated. The bulk of the thesis will then focus on the methods and results of the research performed, followed by a discussion on how the results add to the field in general. Theses are long, highly structured and include a lot of advanced document elements.

This template is designed for writing books and graduate-level theses and provides numerous examples and documentation to enable complex requirements. The design features a relatively narrow main text column with an adjacent wide margin to house notes, figures, tables, citations and captions.

• View Template Information

Masters/Doctoral Thesis

This template provides a full framework for writing a graduate level thesis. It is carefully structured and separated into multiple parts for easy editing. Included are the following pages/sections: a cover page, declaration of authorship, quotation, abstract, acknowledgements, contents page(s), list of figures, list of tables, abbreviations, physical constants, symbols, dedication, example chapter, example appendix and bibliography.

Classicthesis Typographic Thesis

This template has been designed as a homage to the Elements of Typographic Style. As such, it has an air of efficiency and optimal design. It is suitable for any high-level degree thesis such as for a PhD, Masters or Honors. Sections within the thesis are clearly separated in a consistent way, as are sections within each chapter. The default structure of the thesis proceeds in the following order: title page, dedication, abstract, publications, acknowledgements, contents, list of tables/figures/listings, acronyms, content chapters, appendices, bibliography, colophon and declaration.

Maggi Memoir Thesis

This template uses the memoir document class to beautifully typeset a thesis. It is suitable for any high-level degree thesis such as for a PhD, Masters or Honors. The layout of the content is in a thin format to promote easy reading and the template features advanced specification of margins and trimming. The thesis boasts a professional look which is immediately obvious from the title page itself and carries through the design of the rest of the document. Three custom fonts are used in the template to match the design and beautifully display your content.

LaTeX Templates Information

General enquiries [email protected]

Most templates licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

LaTeX Templates is developed in New Zealand

© Creodocs Limited. All Rights Reserved.

LaTeX Resources for Graduate Students: Formatting of theses and dissertations

• BibTeX reference format
• BibTeX command
• LaTeX bibliography file
• LaTeX editors and compilers
• Sample LaTeX file with bibliography
• Sample LaTeX file without bibliography
• Formatting of theses and dissertations

Formatting and structure

The Cornell Graduate School has become increasingly flexible about the formatting of theses and dissertations.  There now are only seven core requirements . For the structure of theses and dissertations here is a list of required and recommended sections .

Latex template

Among the available thesis and dissertation templates provided by the Graduate School is also a LaTeX template (ZIP archive). This template has been uploaded to Overleaf and placed in the Cornell template directory . This template contains a small fix to avoid an error message about \ifpdf .

• << Previous: Sample LaTeX file without bibliography
• Last Updated: Oct 25, 2022 5:12 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/latex

• Graduate School Webpage - Thesis and Dissertation Filing
• The University of Maryland Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) Style Guide, 2021 Edition

LaTeX Template

Latex "how to" documents.

• Using Bibtex with LaTex Documents
• Using Natbib with Latex Documents
• Microsoft Word Template and Template Instructions
• Physical Review Style and Notation Guide, published by The American Physical Society

The original LaTeX thesis template files were developed by Dorothea (Dottie) F. Brosius in 2004 as a result of several requests from graduate students in the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics writing their dissertations.   The template currently in use was updated by D. Brosius on September 20, 2023. Although the sample documents were based on parts of the thesis of Bhaskar Khubchandani, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park in the Spring of 2004, the template has been updated and follows " The University of Maryland Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) Style Guide, 2021 Edition " (pdf).   In addition, the Table of Contents, the List of Figures, the List of Tables, and the Bibliography are now single-spaced; the main text is double-spaced.

All of the files needed for your dissertation can be found in LatexThesisFiles_2023.7z or LatexThesisFiles_2023.zip , both were revised to adhere to the ETD Style Guide, 2021 Edition.    All of the files should be placed in the folder with your thesis files. Thesis.cls should not be changed.

The mainthesis files use the hyperref package which links items in your Table of Contents, List of Figures, and List of Tables to corresponding sections in your thesis.   The links will show in blue when you save your thesis as a pdf file.   The Table of Contents has been updated at the request of the Graduate School to show Chapter 1: Name of Chapter.   I use Miktex and typeset my document using pdflatex, bib, pdflatex, pdflatex.   My figures are usually pdf files; if you use eps files, add \usepackage{epstopdf} to your preamble.

The mainthesis files should not be changed unless you include tables in your thesis, in which case you should delete the % sign on the listoftables line and the newpage line.  Chapter 1 has several tips for inserting tables, longtables, figures, theorems, landscape material, displayed equations (including arrays), enumerated lists, and adding your bibliography (using bibtex and natbib).

Insert your own text and figures in the following files: abstract.tex, titlepage.tex, copyright.tex, preface.tex, acknowledgements.tex, dedication.tex, foreword.tex, chapter1.tex, chapter2.tex, etc., appendix.tex, and bibliography.tex. I have included Bhaskar's .eps files from Chapter 2. If you latexpdf the files as they are, you can see exactly how a thesis using this template will look. The information in Chapter 2 and the Appendix is identical; I simply copied the text to show the difference between the numbering in a chapter and an appendix.

Please note that you must Latex your mainthesis file twice to ensure the references will be properly shown in the dvi file. The dvi file must be changed to a pdf file before it can be submitted to the Graduate School.

I hope these files will be useful to you and save you valuable time. If you need additional assistance or if this information is unclear, please contact Dottie Brosius at dbrosius at umd.edu or 301-405-4955. Please email [email protected] if you are using the LaTeX template (for my records) and also if you have any problems when submitting your thesis to the Graduate School (margins, indentations, etc.) so adjustments can be made to the template.

A Latex resource, recommended by Dr. Nicholas Mecholsky, Ph.D., 2010, is " The Not So Short Introduction to LaTex 2ε " (pdf), by Tobias Oetiker, et al.

Using Bibtex

Using Bibtex with LaTeX documents is not difficult. The bulk of the work is organizing your Bibtex file, which is a database compiled by you of the articles, books, etc. which you use in the bibliographies or reference sections of your publications. The file BibtexSamples.tex contains examples of information needed for the different types of references you may wish to use (e.g., articles in refereed journals, books, unpublished articles, conference proceedings).

Please read the file " Bibtex Instructions ". The first two pages explain how to set up and run Bibtex; the remaining pages were taken from a published article and show how the references were cited in the .tex file. 

Using NatBib

Another option of citing references in the bibliography is using Natbib instead of Bibtex. You must still create a bibtex file, as noted above. The command "\cite" cannot be used with natbib; instead "\citet" and "\citep" must be used. "\citet" is used to show references in the text (e.g., Eq.\ 8 in Reiser,1996 shows ...); "\citep" is used in the parenthetical (e.g., Eq.\ 8 (Reiser, 1996) shows ...).

Add the following to the preamble of your mainthesis.tex file -- \usepackage[option]{natbib}.    I used "\usepackage[sort,square,numbers]{natbib}" in the template.  A list of options to be used with Natbib can be found at http://merkel.zoneo.net/Latex/natbib.php .

At the bottom of the mainthesis.tex file add: \bibliography{name of your bibtex file} \bibliographystyle{plainnat, abbrnat, or unsrtnat} (I use unsrtnat)

I use Miktex and typeset my document using pdflatex, bib, pdflatex, pdflatex.

APS Physical Review Style and Notation Guide

The following style guide may be downloaded from The American Physical Society: Physical Review Style and Notation Guide (pdf), published by The American Physical Society, compiled and edited by Anne Waldron, Peggy Judd, and Valerie Miller, February 1993. It may be old, but it is very useful.

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Overleaf for LaTeX Theses & Dissertations: Using Templates on Overleaf

• Using Templates on Overleaf
• Reference Managers and Overleaf
• Adding Graphs, Tables & Images

LaTeX templates for journals, theses, dissertations, CVs, resumes, papers, presentations, assignments, letters, project reports, and more.

Start your projects with quality LaTeX templates for journals, theses, dissertations, CVs, resumes, papers, presentations, posters, assignments, letters, project reports, and more.

Getting started

Start with Overleaf templates

Overleaf templates make it easy to get started with all types of projects - from papers and presentations to newsletters, CVs, and much more! It's also a great way to learn LaTeX and produce professional looking projects quickly.

Begin Your Work Using the Official 'University' Thesis Template on Overleaf

(If your University has an official thesis template published on Overleaf, you can customize this box accordingly with a link to the template)

Write your thesis using the official ' Name of University goes here ' thesis template

Find your University's template on Overleaf here ( insert link to official LaTeX thesis template on Overleaf Gallery or custom Overleaf institutional portal template page ).

Overleaf Template Gallery

Find templates on Overleaf

Visit our thesis template gallery

Creating your own

Make your own templates on Overleaf

Upload or create templates for assignments, presentations, theses, posters, and student/faculty journals for your institution. Just create it as a project on Overleaf and use the publish menu.

Follow Us for More

New templates are added all the time. Follow us on Twitter for the highlights!

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Thesis / dissertation formatting manual (2024).

• Filing Fees and Student Status
• Submission Process Overview
• Electronic Thesis Submission
• Paper Thesis Submission
• Formatting Overview
• Fonts/Typeface
• Pagination, Margins, Spacing
• Paper Thesis Formatting
• Preliminary Pages Overview
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures (etc.)
• Acknowledgements
• Text and References Overview
• Figures and Illustrations
• Using Your Own Previously Published Materials
• Using Copyrighted Materials by Another Author
• Open Access and Embargoes
• Copyright and Creative Commons
• Ordering Print (Bound) Copies
• Tutorials and Assistance
• FAQ This link opens in a new window

UCI Libraries maintains the following  templates to assist in formatting your graduate manuscript. If you are formatting your manuscript in Microsoft Word, feel free to download and use the template. If you would like to see what your manuscript should look like, PDFs have been provided. If you are formatting your manuscript using LaTex, UCI maintains a template on OverLeaf.

• Annotated Template (Dissertation) 2024 PDF of a template with annotations of what to look out for
• Word: Thesis Template 2024 Editable template of the Master's thesis formatting.
• PDF Thesis Template 2024
• Word: Dissertation Template 2024 Editable template of the PhD Dissertation formatting.
• PDF: Dissertation Template 2024
• Overleaf (LaTex) Template
• << Previous: Tutorials and Assistance
• Next: FAQ >>
• Last Updated: Feb 20, 2024 2:09 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.uci.edu/gradmanual

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A LaTeX template for Bachelor and Master thesis

mbredel/thesis-template

Folders and files, repository files navigation, a thesis latex-template.

This LaTeX-template might be used to write a bachelor or master thesis at the Computer Science department at h_da University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt. It is based on the fabulous ClassicThesis style template of Andre Miedé . It is adapted to the current style guide for bachelor and master theses in the computer science department of h_da, as outlined in Empfehlungen zur Erstellung wissenschaftlicher Abschlussarbeiten

Table of contents

Two-sided vs. one-sided, bibliographies, table of content, figures, tables, listings, and acronyms, personal data, classicthesis-config.tex, writing abstracts, adding content, changing the citation style, compiling the latex source code, using docker, known issues, configuration.

The LaTeX template can be modified and configured easily using a very limited number of files, namely classicthesis-config.tex , hdathesis-config.tex , and thesis.tex . Only use these three files to modify your LaTeX thesis. Please DO NOT modify the actual LaTeX code for your thesis (as this becomes quite complex and consumes a lot of time). Please find a brief description of the various configuration options below:

The thesis.tex file contains the basic structure and all the chapter-files that contain the actual content of your thesis. Thus, you have to modify this file in order to configure some basic stuff like the language of your thesis. The subsequent section "Adding content" explains how to add content.

The default output of the LaTeX thesis template is a single-sided style that also has to be printed that way. In case you want to print two-sided, you have to add the twoside option in the \documentclass definition at line 35:

You may also adapt the paper size ( paper=a4 ) and the font size ( fontsize=11 ) if necessary.

By default all bibliographies that can be referenced in the thesis are put into the bibliography.bib file in the root directory of the LaTeX sources. However, if you want to use additional bibliography files, you may add them to the bibliograph section (starting at line 47) in thesis.tex

The default language of your thesis is German. If you want to switch to English, you have to modify the language selection from ngerman to american at line 63.

While this thesis template supports umlauts, i.e. ÄÖÜäöüß, in the main text of the thesis, there are some issues regarding umlauts on the title page (configured in the personal data at hdathesis-config.tex ). Please see the umlauts section for further details and possible solutions.

By default, the thesis templates prints a lot of table of content, i.e. for figures, tables, listings, and acronyms. You may want to remove such tables if you only have a very limited number, i.e. less than 3-5, of figures, tables, listings, and acronyms. Simply comment the related line in thesis.tex starting at line 81.

hdathesis-config.tex

The hdathesis-config.tex -file allows to configure the usual stuff needed for a thesis at h_da. Namely, you can configure the title of your thesis, your name, the names of your supervisors, dates, etc. Thus, you MUST touch this file and configure it accordingly.

This is where you have to place all the personal stuff of your thesis, starting at line 7.

This thesis template supports German umlauts in the main text. However, if you need umlauts on the title page, say in your title, your name, and your professor's name, you have to use the native LaTeX way of writing umlauts. Please see the following table:

To write the Title "TOR - Schießen mit Füßen" you have to write "TOR - Schie{\ss}en mit F{"u}{\ss}en".

The classicthesis-config.tex -file allows you to configure stuff that comes with the classic-thesis style, like LaTeX packages used by classic thesis. This is quite advanced stuff already. Thus, you should touch this file only if you know what you are doing. Usually, you can leave the file as it is.

In the following, we explain how to actually use, i.e. add content and compile, the thesis template to create a nice and shiny PDF file that will please your supervisor.

Every thesis has to have two abstracts; one in German and one in English. Thus, there are two abstract files included in the thesis.tex -file. Boths files, called AbstractDE.tex for the German abstract and AbstractEN.tex for the English abstract, are located in the ./frontbackmatter/ directory.

You have to modify both these files and place your abstract text in AbstractDE.tex and AbstractEN.tex respectively.

By default, the thesis template, i.e. the thesis.tex -file, contains (includes) some default content files for chapters and appendix from the ./chapters/examples/ -directory (starting a line 94). You have to remove those includes and include your own files. Please note that it is best practice to put all your content in separate files.

You may also want to have a look at the part(...) section at line 93 and 103. You may want to change the titles of the part(...) -sections. Alternatively, you remove the part(...) section and the corresponding cleardoublepage the line before.

By default, this template uses the IEEE Alphabetic style for citatons. The IEEE citation style includes in-text citations in square brackets, which refer to the full citation listed in the reference list at the end of the paper. The reference list is organized alphabetically.

However, if you prefer to uses the old IEEE Numeric style for citations you can do so. To this end, you have to change lines 90 and 91 of classicthesis-config.tex :

You may compile the hda-thesis template using the pdflatex and the bibtex command. In addition, the thesis template repository contains a Makefile that allows you to compile the thesis template using the make tool available on most Unix and Linux systems. Simply type:

to compile the LaTeX code into a PDF-file. Moreover, you may use

to remove all temporary files, which are produced during the compilation process. Finally,

generates a bz2-package file, which contains all the source files of your LaTeX code. In case you need to create a PDF-version with embedded fonts you may use

The h_da thesis template ships with two Dockerfiles that create Docker container used to compile the LaTeX code. One container - built by the Dockerfile.ci Docker file - is used by the CI to compile the thesis template and check its integrity at every commit. The other one - created by the Dockerfile.local Docker file - might be used to build the Docker container that allows to compile the LaTeX code on your local machine without the need to install any LaTeX files.

In order to build the Docker image you have to type the following command:

Creating the image requires a working (and hopefully fast) Internet connection. It may take several minutes to download the required base-images as well as all needed dependencies. You only have to create the image once. Once the image is created, you can run the Docker container by running the following command

inside the root directory containing the LaTeX code. The command mounts the current directory into the Docker container, runs the "publish" make target, and thus compiles the LaTeX code into a PDF file. Finally, the command removes the container again, as it is not needed anymore. You may re-compile the LaTeX code by re-running the "docker run ..." command again.

For more information on Docker, please take a look at the Docker documentation .

• It has not been tested for MiKTeX and MacTeX yet. Any input on these LaTeX distributions is very welcome.
• The LaTeX template only supports bachelor theses (by default)
• The thesis only supports German and (American) English

The h_da computer science department LaTeX thesis template is licenced under GPL v3.0

Acknowledgements

• Many thanks to Sebastian Jung for his hints on the local Docker approach for compiling the LaTeX code.

Contributors 9

• Makefile 1.7%

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How to Write a Thesis in LaTeX (Part 1): Basic Structure

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Author: Josh Cassidy (August 2013)

This five-part series of articles uses a combination of video and textual descriptions to teach the basics of writing a thesis using LaTeX. These tutorials were first published on the original ShareLateX blog site during August 2013; consequently, today's editor interface (Overleaf) has changed considerably due to the development of ShareLaTeX and the subsequent merger of ShareLaTeX and Overleaf. However, much of the content is still relevant and teaches you some basic LaTeX—skills and expertise that will apply across all platforms.

Your thesis could be the longest and most complicated document you'll ever write, which is why it's such a good idea to use L a T e X instead of a common word processor. L a T e X makes tasks that are difficult and awkward in word processors, far simpler.

When writing something like a thesis its worth splitting up the document into multiple .tex files. It's also wise to organise the project using folders; therefore, we'll create two new folders, one for all the images used in the project and one for all the .tex files making up the main body of the thesis.

• 1 The preamble
• 2 The frontmatter
• 3 The main body
• 4 The endmatter
• 5 All articles in this series

The preamble

In this example, the main.tex file is the root document and is the .tex file that will draw the whole document together. The first thing we need to choose is a document class. The article class isn't designed for writing long documents (such as a thesis) so we'll choose the report class, but we could also choose the book class.

We can also change the font size by adding square brackets into the \documentclass command and specifying the size—we'll choose 12pt. Let's also prepare the document for images by loading the graphicx package. We'll also need to tell L a T e X where to look for the images using the \graphicspath command, as we're storing them in a separate folder.

The start of our preamble now looks like this:

Now we can finish off the preamble by filling in the title, author and date information. To create the simplest title page we can add the thesis title, institution name and institution logo all into the \title command; for example:

This isn't the best way to alter the title page so we'll look at more elaborate ways of customising title pages later on in the series, but this will suffice for now.

This is what the \maketitle command now produces for us:

The frontmatter

After the title page we need to add in an abstract, dedication, declaration and acknowledgements section. We can add each of these in on separate pages using unnumbered chapters. To do this we use the \chapter command and add an asterisk. After these sections we'll add a table of contents using the \tableofcontents command:

The main body

Now for the main body of the document. In this example we will add-in five chapters, one of which will be an introduction and another will be a conclusion. However, instead of just composing these chapters in the main .tex file, we'll create a separate .tex file for each chapter in the chapters folder. We can then fill in these chapters with text remembering to split them up into sections and subsections.

Then to add these chapters into the document, we use the \input command in the root document. Remember to add in chapters/ before the file name so that L a T e X knows where to find it.

The endmatter

We will now add in an appendix at the end of the document. To do this we use the \appendix command to tell L a T e X that what follows are appendices. Again We'll write the appendix in a separate file and then input it.

If we now compile the document, all our chapters will be added to the document and the table of contents will be automatically generated.

Now we have a basic structure for a thesis set up. In the next post I will show you how to change the page layout and add headers.

All articles in this series

• Part 1: Basic Structure ;
• Part 2: Page Layout ;
• Part 3: Figures, Subfigures and Tables ;
• Part 4: Bibliographies with BibLaTeX ;
• Part 5: Customising Your Title Page and Abstract .
• Documentation Home
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• Using the Overleaf project menu
• Including images in Overleaf
• Exporting your work from Overleaf
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LaTeX Basics

• Creating your first LaTeX document
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• Mathematical expressions
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• Aligning equations
• Spacing in math mode
• Integrals, sums and limits
• Display style in math mode
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Figures and tables

• Inserting Images
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References and Citations

• Bibliography management with bibtex
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• Biblatex citation styles
• Multilingual typesetting on Overleaf using polyglossia and fontspec
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• Quotations and quotation marks

Document structure

• Sections and chapters
• Table of contents
• Cross referencing sections, equations and floats
• Nomenclatures
• Management in a large project
• Multi-file LaTeX projects
• Lengths in L a T e X
• Headers and footers
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• Single sided and double sided documents
• Multiple columns
• Code listing
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• Supporting modern fonts with X Ǝ L a T e X

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Field specific

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• Understanding packages and class files
• List of packages and class files
• Writing your own package
• Writing your own class

Advanced TeX/LaTeX

• In-depth technical articles on TeX/LaTeX

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BibTeX mastersthesis template

The mastersthesis entry type is intended to be used for a Master's thesis.

Minimal template

Minimal template with required fields only for a BibTeX mastersthesis entry.

Full template

Full template including required and optional fields for a BibTeX mastersthesis entry.