ist-dissertation-latex-template

Master dissertation Latex template for Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal). If you are a student in IST and you want to write your dissertation using Latex, this can be a good starting point. This template tries to follow this school's specification that you can get here:

• Dissertation guidelines

The instructions to submit your dissertation at IST are available in the following link:

• Delivery instructions Sorry but it is only available in portuguese :(

I cannot guarantee you that this template is 100% right. I recommend that you talk to your advisors to check it first. I am not responsible for something going wrong, if you choose to use this template.

Focus on your thesis and not on the template.

Requirements:

• Latex: This will depend on your Operating System. You have to check how to install all Latex packages for your OS. Note: Make sure that the version of Latex that you are installing is the latest one.
• Any text editor (I use Atom)
• Latex plugins for your text editor (this is optional, but it will make your life easier). I use the following ones for Atom:
  • language-latex
  • latex
  • latexer

Usage

To use this template, you can simply fork this repo and start working on it.

If you don't want to fork, you can download a zip of the repo.

Once you have a copy of this repo, you can start creating sections, add a bibliography, etc.

Variables

Some values, for instance, the dissertation's title, are defined in a file called variables.tex. For instance, if you want to change the title, open this file and look for title's definition:

...
\newcommand {\Title} {My Title}

Replace "My Title" by your actual title.

You can also add your own variables. To define a new variable all you need to do is just to add a new line like this:

\newcommand {\VariableName} {Value}

Replace "VariableName" by its name and "Value" by the actual value. To use this variable in your document:

\VariableName

If you know how to define macros in Latex you can define as many as you want and anyway you want in this file.

Cover

The cover file (cover.tex) has information such as title, supervisors, examination committee, etc. This file has the cover's layout. The values of title, subtitle, etc are defined in a file called variables.tex. Edit that file according to what makes sense in your dissertation.

Co-advisor name

Some thesis have two advisors instead of just one. If this is your case, open the variables.tex file and look for a variable named HasCoAdvisor and change its value from 0 to 1 like this:

% You had a co-advisor:
% if you only had one advisor change \HasCoAdvisor{1} to \HasCoAdvisor{0}
\def \HasCoAdvisor{1}

Then, edit his/her name in the same file variables.tex:

\newcommand {\CoAdvisor} {{\large Prof./Dr. Co Advisor}}

Thesis Final Version

There are committee members and a chairperson in the defense of your thesis. However, you don't know who they are before the presentation. The version that you deliver after the presentation is the final one and has this information that was missing before. To have this information in your thesis cover, open variables.tex file and edit the names of the Committee Members and ChairPerson:

% After the thesis defense
\newcommand {\CommitteeMembers} {
{\large Prof./Dr. Lorem Ipsum}\\
{\large Prof./Dr. Lorem Ipsum}
}
\newcommand {\Chairperson} {{\large Prof./Dr. Lorem Ipsum}}

Then, in the same file, variables.texchange the value of IsFinalVersion from 0 to 1:

% Is final version (will include Committee Members information)
\def \IsFinalVersion{1}

Abstract

According to the specification you have to write the abstract in english and portuguese. The english is located at abstract/abstract-en.tex and the portuguese abstract/abstract-pt.tex. Just edit those files.

Acknowledgments

Along the way, some people helped you. If you want to show them some love, this is the right place for it. Open the file acknowledgments/acknowledgments.texand say thanks to everyone.

Anyway, this is optional. If you don't want to have this on your dissertation, just open variables.tex file and put 0 as the value of the includeAcknowledgments definition:

...
% Include or not include acknowledgments
\def \includeAcknowledgments{0}

Also, it would be nice if you buy, at least, a beer to whoever supported you :) (Including the one that provided you this awesome template)

Chapters

Chapters are located at chaptersfolder. To create a new chapter, you first need to create a file in this folder. The easiest way to do this, is to create a copy of chapters/new_chapter_template.tex file:

$ cp chapters/new_chapter_template.tex chapters/mychapter.tex

In the new file, change the section's title and label.

Now you just need to include this new chapter in the main file in chapters folder. Open chapters/main.tex file and add the include for the new chapter

% Chapters
...
\include{chapters/mychapter}
...

Now get some inspiration and write its content.

Images

Image files go to images directory. Place your files here and include them in wherever makes sense.

Bibliography

The bibliography is in a bib file located at bibliography/dissertation.bib. Put your bibliography there and cite it anywhere.

Appendix

Appendix chapters are located at appendixfolder. To create an appendix chapter, create a file in this folder. The easiest way is to copy the new_appendix_chapter_template.tex file.

$ cp appendix/new_appendix_chapter_template.tex appendix/mynewchapter.tex

Edit this file to set the chapter's title and create its content.

Now you have to include this new file in the main file (appendix/main.tex). Open it and include the new chapter's file below the appendix beginning

...
% Appendix chapters entry point
% Include the chapters below
...
\include{appendix/mynewchapter}
...

Acronyms

Acronyms definitions are located in the acronyms directory. To add a new acronym in your document you must define the new entry in the acronyms.tex file:

\newacronym{<label>}{<abbreviation>}{<full>}

To reference an acronym you can use

\gls{<label>}

to cite the acronym in the singular form, or

\glspl{<label>}

if you want to cite the acronym in the plural form.

Glossary

Glossary definitions are located in the glossary directory. To add a new term in the glossary of your document you must define the new entry in the glossary.tex file:

\newglossaryentry{<label>}{<settings>}

The most common settings of a glossary entry are the name, description and symbol, as illustrated in this example:

 \newglossaryentry{<label>}{ name={name},
                            description={description},
                            symbol={symbol}}

To reference a term defined in your glossary you can use the command \gls{<label>} to cite the term in the singular form, or \glspl{<label>} if you want to cite the term in the plural form. To cite the description or symbol of an entry you can use the \glsdesc{<label>} and \glssymbol{<label>}.

Since this is not mandatory, by default, it is not being included. If you want to include it in your dissertation, just set the value of includeGlossary variable in variables.tex file to 1.

...
% Include or not include glossary
\def \includeGlossary{1}

Add extra stuff to the preamble

Some thesis require more packages or you might want to define your own commands. Instead of adding stuff to the dissertation.tex file you can use the extra_stuff.tex file. Here you can add everthing you need. For instance, if you want to use minted package to have syntax highlight for code snippets, you can introduce the needed usepackage to this file. Like this:

\usepackage{minted}

Compile

You have some ways to create the final pdf:

Using the text editor

It depends on the text editor you are using. If you are using atom and the latex plugin, just press Ctrl + Alt + B

Using the provided scripts

If you have the complete Latex environment installed, you can run the toPDF.sh script to generate the PDF (dissertation.pdf):

$ sh toPDF.sh

To clean all the mess (files generated by the compilation process), you can run clean.sh script:

$ sh clean.sh

Using Grunt

Using Grunt is optional, but if you choose to use these option you will make the development of you document much more efficient, since that each time that a .tex file is saved, the whole document is compiled again. The requirements to use Grunt are:

• NodeJS
• NPM
• Grunt-CLI

After install this components you need to change to the project's root directory and install the project dependencies by running:

$ npm install

And then you already can run Grunt:

$ grunt

Now you can edit you LaTex document. When you save the changes, your document will be compiled automatically.

NOTE: If you are using grunt you must not delete the toPDF.sh and clean.sh because it uses those scripts.

Using the Makefile

There is a Makefile in the project's root. If you have pdflatex and bibtex executables available on your 'Path' you can use this make file. Simply run:

$ make

To clean all the mess generated by the compilation process you can run:

$ make clean

Using an online tool

If you don't want to install anything and just want to use an online editor you can also use this template.

For instance, Overleaf is a latex online editor. You just need to create an account and import the files on this template to it.

You can use any other online latex editor, but it must support glossaries package, that is being used to generate the acronyms list.

Contribute ;)

Thanks to @mvpgomes that started this template and did most of the work. I am just publishing it on github and improving its structure a bit.

If you notice that something is missing, you can open an issue and make a pull request. Feel free to contribute :)