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LaTeX Template for a thesis

Getting started

TeX Live

Download the latest version of TeX Live from here. The installation can take a while, so be patient ;)

Editors

You can use the editor of your choice. It's highly recommended for this template to use the LaTeX-Workshop-Extension for VS Code. There you can compile the tex-files very easily and you get a good support with autocompletion for references or bibliography.

Another editor can be found in TeXworks editor. The editor should already be included in the TeX Live package. You can find the .exe in the installation folder of your TeX Live distribution (...\texlive\2017\bin\win32\texworks.exe). Otherwise download the latest version from the website.

The following descriptions are for TeXworks only. If you use VS Code LaTeX-Workshop you can skip these sections because it does the things automatically.

Compile the tex-file (in TeXworks)

Finally you want to see the template working so you need to open the file thesis.tex with the TeXworks editor. On the top left you can press the green button to compile the template. Be sure that you select pdfLaTeX in the select box next to the green compile button. Now the compiler should run without any errors and the preview of the PDF opens up. The content of the table of contents or the list of figures are not rendered yet. You need to compile the template twice.

Biber (in TeXworks)

As you may have noticed the footnote for the cites are not rendered yet very well. To compile the cites and the bibliography settings you need biber. You have to select the biber-compiler instead of the pdfLaTeX in the selection next to the green compiler button.

You cannot find biber there?

You just have to set up the TeXworks editor that it shows the biber-compiler. Go into the settings of TeXworks (under Edit > Settings...) and select the tab Typesetting. Under the point Processing tools click on the + and add biber. Name it 'Biber' and select the program under your installation folder of texlive (e.g. C:/texlive/2015/bin/win32/biber.exe). You have to add the argument $basename and uncheck the option to view pdf after running.

Now select biber in the dropdown list next to the compile button to run biber. After that you need to run pdfLaTeX again and then you should have the literature correctly in your template.

Did not get the configuration of biber? Look here for some screenshots.

Project structure

There's one main file called thesis.tex which can be found in the root folder. This file includes all the other files needed for the whole template. The content is splitted up into files which can be found in the folder chapters.

The chapters are included like this:

\input{chapters/chapter1}
\input{chapters/chapter2}
\input{chapters/chapter3}
\input{chapters/chapter4}

Settings

All settings are located under the settings-folder.

The settings will be included with these commands in the thesis.tex-file:

\input{settings/bibliography.tex}
\input{settings/graphics.tex}

Images

All images are located under the images-folder. Because of the settings (settings/graphics.tex) we do not need the whole file path when we load an image into the content. You can just write the name of the image.

Example:

\includegraphics{sample}

The 'real' image is located under images/ and has the full file name sample.jpeg. You can easily change the default images path in the settings/graphics.tex-file.

Add image with caption The following code shows how to include an image in a figure environment. The image has a width of 100% of the page. If you want another width just change it, e.g. 300px. The caption of the image in the [] is the text that will be shown in the list of figures after the table of contents. The text in the {} is shown as title under the image. With the label-text you can refer the image in the text with: \autoref{fig:imageYouCanReferTo} shows that....

\begin{figure}[h]
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth, height=\textheight,keepaspectratio]{sample}
    \caption[Beispielbild (Abbildungsverzeichnis)]{Beispielbild} 
    \label{fig:imageYouCanReferTo}
\end{figure}

If you have a smaller image and you want to center it, you can set it up with the centering-command:

\begin{figure}[h]
    \centering
    ... 

KomaScript

The template uses the KomaScript-bundle. Need more information?

Literature

Big point for a thesis: how to handle the required literature and how to include cites into the thesis?

As you can see (settings/bibliography.tex) the template uses the package biblatex. In the settings file you need to include your resource files.

\bibliography{sources/literature.bib}

As you can see in the example above we have already a literature file in the sources-folder with the following entry:

@Online{jondoe,
  author  = {Jon Doe},
  title   = {What do you think about Jon Doe},
  year    = {2016},
  url     = {https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Doe},
  urldate = {2016-10-02},
}

The sources will be divided either in "Online"-sources or "Literature"-sources.

This can be configured in the thesis.tex-file:

\printbibliography[heading=subbibliography, type=online, title={Online}]
\printbibliography[heading=subbibliography, type=book, title={Literatur}]

Note

Make sure to run the LaTeX compiler for at least 3 times to see the contents of the literature section properly.

JabRef

Wait! Do I need to update those entries every time manually? This can be really ugly over time. The solution is JabRef. JabRef is a small but very useful java application to handle our sources and to update the .bib-files in our sources-folder.

Download JabRef from the website and open your .bib-files with it. Here you can easily update your sources through a user interface.

Cites and footnotes

How to use the sources in my content?

You need to know the keyword of your defined source of the .bib-file (in the example this is jondoe). Then write the following syntax to create a footnote in your thesis:

Citation as footnote

\footcite{jondoe}

Harvard citation style

If you prefer the harvard citation style (Doe, 2016) you should use the following commands:

\textcite{jondoe} % Doe (2016)
\parencite[vgl.][]{jondoe} % (vgl. Doe 2016)
\parencite[vgl.][7]{jondoe} % (vgl. Doe 2016, S. 7)

You may notice that if you want to use the same source multiple times in a paragraph you will see something like this:

(vgl. ebd., S. 26)

Never heard of "ebd"?

Remember to compile your thesis with biber to render the cites correctly.

Normal footnote If you want to add a normal footnote to add some further information:

\footnote{This is some additional information}

Listings

The template provides some listings for CSS, HTML and JavaScript. You will find the definition of the listings under settings/listings.tex.

In the settings you have to define the language with its keywords and other needed options...

\lstdefinelanguage{HTML5}{...}

and then you also need to define a style to style the definition of the language...

\lstdefinestyle{html}{
    language=HTML5,
    ...
}

and use it in the content later...

\begin{lstlisting}[style=html, caption={ein paar Zeilen html}]
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>
    
</body>
</html>
\end{lstlisting}

Minted package

Another very good package for listings is minted.

Inline listing

For inline listings just use the custom command \code{console.log()}. This command is defined in the settings/commands.tex-file.

Colors

You can define the colors in the settings/colors.tex-file.

\definecolor{vscodegreen}{HTML}{66BB6A}

Use colors in the text:

\textcolor{vscodegreen}{Lorem ipsum dolor}