Masterthesis

An elegant LaTeX template for your thesis and presentation

Final results

Sane typesetting standards, drop caps and a touch of color make the reading more enjoyable, both on screens and paper:

100% of this template users graduated with the highest honors:

The simplicity of the accompanying presentation will keep the audience focused:

Find example PDFs inside the example folder

Requirements

• a comprehensive LaTeX distribution such as TeXLive (to load required packages)
• biber (to build the bibliography)
• a LaTeX or text editor (to edit files)
• make (to start compilation workflows, optional)
• TeXtidote for spellchecking (optional)

File structure

Thesis

These files can be used to generate thesis.pdf

├── chapters/                       # folder for structured document content
│   └── 1.tex                       #     content of first chapter
├── pages/                          # folder for single pages, lists, references and variables
│   ├── acknowledgements.tex        #     people that have professionally helped and supported you
│   ├── acronyms.tex                #     list of acronyms
│   ├── bibliography.tex            #     layout of bibliography
│   ├── colophon.tex                #     notes about typesetting
│   ├── committee.tex               #     empty page for signatures
│   ├── copyright.tex               #     simple copyright notice
│   ├── dedication.tex              #     dedication to someone special
│   ├── lists.tex                   #     layout of content, list of figures, list of tables, etc.
│   ├── placeholder.tex             #     standard placeholder text
│   ├── references.bib              #     bibtex database of bibliographical references
│   ├── title.tex                   #     layout of title
│   └── variables.tex               #     contains university, author and thesis details
├── pictures/                       # folder for pictures
├── masterthesis.cls                # layout of thesis document
└── thesis.tex                      # main structure of the thesis document

Presentation

These files are used to generate presentation.pdf

├── chapters/                       # folder for structured document content
│   └── slides.tex                  #     content of slides
├── pages/                          # folder for single pages, lists, references and variables
│   ├── references.bib              #     bibtex database of bibliographical references
│   └── variables.tex               #     contains university, author and thesis details
├── beamerthememasterthesis.sty     # layout of presentation
└── presentation.tex                # main structure of the presentation

Other files

Other files have many purposes:

├── examples/                       # folder containing example PDF outputs
├── extra/                          # folder for files that generate other PDFs
│   ├── digital-cover.tex           #     layout of cover for digital reading
│   ├── part.tex                    #     quickly compile a part of the content
│   ├── printed-cover.tex           #     layout of front cover for relief printing
│   └── printed-spine.tex           #     layout of cover spine for relief printing
├── pages/                          # folder for single pages, lists, references and variables
│   └── words.txt                   #     dictionary of new words to ignore while performing the spellcheck
├── .gitignore                      # prevents git from saving temporary files
├── .hidden                         # prevents many linux file managers from showing temporary files
├── .textidote                      # spellcheck options
├── LICENSE                         # license file
├── Makefile                        # allows to build the thesis via `make` commands
├── README.md                       # explain objective
├── USAGE-PRESENTATION.md           # explain usage of presentation
└── USAGE-THESIS.md                 # explain usage of thesis

If needed, files inside extra should be copied to the main folder and run with LuaLaTeX:

lualatex part.tex

PDF generation

There are three ways to generate the PDFs:

• make
• manually running the commands in Makefile from your shell
• using your LaTeX editor features (make sure it is using LuaLaTeX)

Here is a list of the most common make commands:

 # generate thesis
make thesis

 # generate presentation
make presentation

 # generate an HTML report of latex or grammar mistakes
make spellcheck

 # deletes temporary files
make clean

Content editing

To know what macros to use in your main thesis document, see USAGE-THESIS.md. For the presentation, see USAGE-PRESENTATION.md