Dave's Thesis-in-a-Box
(some assembly required)
David Symonds, 2003
If you're not interested in using LaTeX, turn back now!
LaTeX HOWTO
This is a package to get you started with writing your Honours thesis. It's
targetted at Computer Science in the University of Sydney, though it is easy
enough to adapt to other purposes. It will be most useful to people using it
in a Unix-like environment with a reasonably recent LaTeX release installed.
Assumptions
- You have LaTeX installed
(the tetex, tetex-latex and
tetex-fonts package for RPM-based Linux distros,
or the tetex-base, tetex-bin and
tetex-extra packages for Debian). It is already
installed okay on staff. Windows users can try to get
MiKTeX to work for them.
- You have a brain
Download
DTIAB:
Sample output (PostScript)
Sample output (PDF)
Use
After extracting, you can build it straight away (which is a good test of your
LaTeX setup). To build, be in the directory that contains everything else,
and type:
make
This produces jqpublic-thesis.ps (or use "make pdf" to create a PDF).
The makefile is set up to rebuild when any relevant files are changed. Have a
quick look through it - you'll need to modify it when you add more figures,
chapters or appendices.
Files
The important files are:
- main.tex - the master controlling source file
(includes everything else)
- config.tex - Defines stuff like your degree and the name
of the department
- title.tex - Title page
- abstract.tex - Your abstract
- thanks.tex - Acknowledgements
- chap1.tex ... chap5.tex - Main chapters
- app1.tex - An example appendix
- refs.bib - Bibliography (in BibTeX format)
- figs/*.eps - Figures
The rest of the files are for various things; don't worry about modifying them
except to change how the layout looks.
Contact
I can be emailed at
,
or found in G61B. Come and chat to me if you
need help getting started or getting things going. Check this page regularly
for updates!