A LaTeX template for (PhD) theses

A customizable template for theses written in LaTeX. It is mainly oriented towards cryptography/computer science theses, but can be used for any other topic.

Uses KOMA script's book class as the document class, and a bunch of other packages such as microtype (for microtypography), biblatex (for advanced bibliography management), or lettrine ...

How To Use the Template

To use this template, you can just clone this repo, or fork it.

Structure

./
├── master.tex                                 * root LaTeX file
├── master.pdf                                 * link to the compiled document
├── biblio_aux.bib                             * additional bibliography
├── README.md
├── LICENSE
├──aux/                                        * configuration files
|   ├── algorithms.tex                         * configuration of the algorithmicx package
|   ├── chapter_toggles.tex                    * declaration of toggles to enable-disable chapters
|   ├── (chapter_toggles.conf)                 * override the default values declared in 
|	│                                            chapter_toggles.tex (not tracked by git)
|   ├── chapterthumb.sty                       * package providing printed chapter bookmarks
|   ├── fonts.tex                              * font definition
|   ├── layout.tex                             * configuration of the thesis layout
|   ├── macros.tex                             * useful generic math/crypto macros
|   ├── packages.tex                           * commonly used, and useful packages 
│   └── topic_macros.tex                       * your own macros for the thesis
|
├── content/                                   * document's content source
|   ├── resume_fr/                             * summary in french
|	│   ├── resume_fr_master.tex               * master file
|	│   ├── intro_se_fr.tex                    * introduction in french
|	│   └── contributions.tex                  * contributions in french
|	│
│   ├── introduction/                          * introduction chapter
|	|	├── introduction_master.tex            * master file
|	│   |
|	│   ...
|	│
│   ├── definitions/                           * definitions chapter
|	|	├── definitions_master.tex             * master file
|	│   |
|	│   ...
|	│
│   └── conclusion/                            * conclusion
|	    ├── conclusion_master.tex              * master file
|	    ├── summary.tex                        
|	    └── open_problems.tex                  
│
├── cover/                                     * cover page
|	├── front.tex                              * source for the cover page
|	└── front.pdf                              * compiled cover
│
└── build/                                     * built sources
	├── master.pdf                             * compiled document
	├── master.aux                             * TeX aux file
	├── master.log                             * Compilation log
	|
	...

Configuration Flags

This template has several configurations flags.

• draft: activates the draft mode. Disables microtype and chapterthumb
• chapterthumb: activates chapter thumbs (gray blocks on the right of odd pages with the chapter number)
• showoverflow: activates an overfull hbox indicator (very useful for to locate them)
• allowtodo: allows the \todo command. Otherwise, the compilation will fail if you have some todos in your document. Turn off this option to make sure you did not forget any todo.
• showtodo: displays the todos in the document.
• inlinetodo: when turned on, this option makes the todos appear inlined in red in the document. Otherwise, they are displayed in the margins.
• printversion: disable colored links for the print version
• biblatex: use biblatex instead of bibtex for bibliography management
• chapter_bib: display a bibliography at the end of each chapter listing all the citation within this chapter
• chap_minitoc: display a table of content at the beginning of each chapter
• lettrine: enables the lettrines, using the \lettrine command. If this option is turned off, the lettrine will be displayed as normal text.
• enluminure: enables the \enluminure command, a lettrine with a special font. If this option is disabled, and lettrine is enabled, the \lettrine command will be used instead. If both options are disabled, the enluminure will be displayed as normal text.

These flag can be set (resp. unset) by using \toggletrue{flag} (resp. \togglefalse{flag})

For Cryptographers

If you are writing a crypto thesis, you will be interested in the cryptocode package. It defines many macros that are useful when writing cryptography.

Also, I advise to use the amazing CryptoBib repo for the bibliography. It regroups all the publications in the major crypto/security conferences in a single .bib file, with standardized cite keys (e.g. PKC:CPPT14 for the article by Canetti, Paneth, Papadopoulos, and Triandopoulos published at PKC in 2014). The references are also normalized (all the papers from the same conference/journal are referenced the same way), which IMHO is great.

To get CryptoBib, create a submodule:

git submodule add https://github.com/cryptobib/export cryptobib

To update the CryptoBib submodule, do:

( cd cryptobib && git pull origin master )

Finally, to retrieve the submodule after a git clone, or a git pull:

git submodule update --init

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.