latex thesis book or report

LaTeX-Tutorial.com

Your guide to documentclass latex: types and options, what is documentclass latex.

Every LaTeX document starts with a \begin{document} command and ends with an \end{document} command. LaTeX ignores anything that follows the \end{document}. The part of the source code file that precedes the \begin{document} declaration is called the preamble .

The first command of the preamble has to be \docummentclass (although technically it can be preceded with prepended files). This command takes a single mandatory argument that is one of the predefined classes of document that LaTeX has built-in. In this tutorial, we are going to explain and see the differences and similarities of these document classes , and what should each one be used for. We will also talk about the multiple optional arguments that the \documentclass command takes, and that can be used to customize the appearance of our document .

There are also third-party document classes that are written and distributed as external packages. Some of these classes, like beamer to make presentations and memoir to extend the functionalities of the book class , are very popular and useful, but we won’t cover them here, since they are much more sophisticated and complex than the predefined classes.

LaTeX document classes and their use

The document classes available in plain LaTeX are reported in the following table:

• The first two document classes are the basic ones; if you don’t know what document class you should use, always start with article .
• The report class is very similar, the main difference with the article being that you can insert chapters with \chapter, while in the article class the highest element in the hierarchy of titles is the \section command .

LaTeX book class

In typographical standards, books differ from reports mainly in their front and back matter. The front matter of a book usually includes:

• a half-title page,
• a main title page,
• a copyright page,
• a preface or foreword, and a table of contents.

It may also contain:

• acknowledgments,
• a dedication,
• a list of figures,
• a list of tables,
• a list of other books in the same series, and other editorial or promotional content.

The back matter usually includes an index and may contain an afterword, also acknowledgments, a bibliography, a colophon, and so on.

The book document class provides some commands to produce the logical structures previously discussed, that the report class isn’t able to deal with by default . However, it does not try to yield tools to all of them. Individual publishers usually have their own packages with additional commands to typeset the structures according to their manual of style.

Front matter, main matter and back matter commands

The front matter, main matter (which contains the main body of the book, starting at the first chapter or part and ending at the appendices), and back matter are begun with the three commands \frontmatter, \mainmatter, and \backmatter, respectively.

In the standard book class, front matter pages are numbered with roman numerals; main and back matter pages are numbered with arabic numerals.

In the front and back matter, the \chapter command does not produce a chapter number, but it does make a table of contents entry; this can be used, for example, to produce a preface or acknowledgments section. Inside these kind of chapters, only the starred versions of other sectioning commands (mainly \section* and \subsection*) should be used.

Illustrative example of Book class

For example, this could be a standard book structure:

You can see the table of contents produced by the previous book in Figure 1. Observe how the numbering of the pages and the sectioning commands change according to the part of the book we are in.

Odd and even pages in Book class

When printing books, odd and even pages are not structured in the same way. Margins, and usually also headers and footers, change to provide better readability when the book is bound. This is taken into account in the book document class, where you will see that:

• left pages have a larger left margin, the page number at the top left of the page, and the title of the current chapter at the right, while
• right pages have a larger right margin and only the page number at the top right of the page. Also, new chapters start always at the right page and the page head is emptied, leaving only the page numb er at the center on the foot of the page.

No built-in abstract

There is one more difference between the book class and the article and report classes : it doesn’t have a built-in abstract environment .

This environment is used in academic articles, and also reports, to give a brief description of the contents that will be treated along with the document. It is customary for this introduction to have special typesetting, with “Abstract” written in bold over it, and also it is common to find it printed just after the title and before the table of contents. As said, this environment is not implemented in the book document class.

Memoir class

It is worth mentioning here that there is a popular extension of the book document class, called memoir, written by Peter Wilson.

This package aims to integrate multiple design-related packages with the LaTeX book class. It provides:

• a larger range of permissible font sizes,
• a large number of page styles, and well
• over a dozen chapter styles to choose from, as well as
• methods for specifying your own layouts and designs.
• It also integrates the functionality of over thirty popular packages.

LaTeX letter class

As with the slide document class, the letter is slightly old-fashioned. This class is used to make traditional letters, the ones that are put in an envelope and mailed, a somewhat obsolete way of communication (since the email was invented and generalized) but still used in certain official matters. Although the class was designed for traditional letters, still today there are certain documents that have the structure of a letter such as:

• a letter of recommendation, or
• a letter of presentation

and for which this document class may be useful. So let’s briefly discuss the details that characterize this particular document class!

With it, you can make any number of letters with a single input file:

• Your name and address, which are likely to be the same for all letters, are specified by special declarations.
• The return address is declared by an \address command, with multiple output lines separated by \\ commands (which is the common line-breaking command in LaTeX).
• The \signature command declares your name, as it appears at the end of the letter, with the usual \\ separating multiple lines.

These declarations are usually put in the preamble because they are common to all letters, but they are normal declarations with the customary scoping rules and can appear anywhere in the document. In particular, this means that you can change the return address and signature at any point.

Each letter is produced by a separate letter environment, having the name and address of the recipient as its mandatory argument.

• The letter itself begins with an \opening command that is used to generate the salutation.
• The main body of the lecture is ordinary LaTeX input.
• The letter closes with a \closing command that is passed the closing sentence and automatically generates the signature.

These may seem a lot of commands, but they are all very easy to use, and also very powerful since LaTeX automatically will take care of the formatting of the letter, without you having to worry about it at all.

In case you are not convinced yet, let me show you a clarifying example where all the commands are put into practice so that you can use it as a template for your letters:

You can see the letter generated in Figure 2. Note how LaTeX automatically formates everything, and even inserts the current date without you asking for it. I find generating letters with LaTeX easier than doing it by hand!

We said that the date on the letters is automatically inserted by LaTeX and that it uses today’s date. We can, however, change this behavior by redefining the \today command, which is where LaTeX saves the name of the day. For example:

\renewcommand{\today}{12th of October of 1492}

will make \today print the content “12th of October of 1492”. This declaration can either be used on the preamble, to affect all letters or inside a certain letter environment, to only affect that letter.

documentclass latex options

As was stated in the introduction, there are some optional arguments that can be passed to the \documentclass command. Here we are going to explain these options:

The options 10pt, 11pt, and 12pt choose the normal type size of the document. The default value is 10pt. This option is not recognized by the slides class.

The paper size can be selected between the following options:

• letterpaper (8.5in × 11in)
• legalpaper (8.5in × 14in)
• executivepaper (7.25in × 10.5in)
• A4 (210mm × 297mm)
• A5 (148mm × 210mm)
• B5 (176mm × 250mm)

By default, the paper size is letterpaper.

The landscape option causes the output to be formatted for landscape printing on the selected paper size. Effectively, this option interchanges the width and the height dimensions of the paper size.

If TeX has trouble finding good places to break lines, it can produce lines that extend past the right margin (which produce the output warnings called “overfull hboxes”). The draft option causes such lines to be marked by black boxes in the output. The final option, which does not mark these lines, is the default.

Two sides printing

The oneside and twoside options format the output to be printed on one side or both sides of a page, respectively. The default is oneside, except for the book class, for which it is twoside. However, the twoside option is not available with the slides document class.

Opening page of chapters

If the openright option is used, then all chapters will begin on a right-hand page. Instead, with the openany option you can make them start on any page. These options apply only to the report class (whose default is openany) and the book class (whose default is openright).

Two column pages

The option twocolumn specifies two-column pages. The default is onecolumn, for one-column pages. The twocolumn option cannot be used with the letter or slides classes.

Page for the title

The titlepage option causes the \maketitle command to make a separate title page and the abstract environment to put the abstract on a separate page. The default is titlepage for all classes except article, for which it is notitlepage. hese options, however, are not recognized by the letter class.

Open bibliography style

openbib causes the bibliography to be formatted in an open style. This option is not recognized by the letter and slides classes.

Numbered formulas

The option leqno puts formula numbers on the left side, instead of the right, which is the default.

Formulas alignment

The option fleqn left-aligns formulas, which by default are centered.

Recent Posts

Typesetting Multiple Choice Questions in LaTeX

n this tutorial, we will see how to write a multiple-choice exam in LaTeX, using the exam document class. This document class provides multiple tools to easily typeset exams in LaTeX, and we have...

How to Write a Minimalistic CV in LaTeX: Step-by-step Guide

In this step by step tutorial, we will learn how to typeset a professional CV, and gain some more insight into how LaTeX works with a practical example.

Overleaf - LaTeX: Books and Dissertations

• Getting Started
• Creating a LaTeX Document in Overleaf
• Structuring and Formatting
• Lists, Tables, Images, and Labelling
• Mathematics in LaTeX
• Bibliographies and Citing
• Books and Dissertations
• Submitting from Overleaf

Getting started

To write a book or dissertation in LaTeX, it is recommended that you change your document class to book . By using the article class book , you can add chapters to your document.

Another document class that may be useful in writing longer documents with chapters is the report  class.

Adding chapters and table of contents

The ideal way to add chapters to your LaTeX document while writing a book is by creating a separate file for each chapter. These individual chapter files do not need a preamble. All you need to add at the beginning of each chapter file is the name of the chapter using the \chapter {..} command.

Using the \input {..} command in your root document (titled main.tex by default), you can add in your chapters.

You can further add a table of contents to your document using the \tableofcontents command. This command automatically uses the information entered for each chapter to generate a table of contents for your document. 

Other useful sections to add to your book or dissertation could be a list of tables or figures.

• << Previous: Bibliographies and Citing
• Next: Submitting from Overleaf >>
• Last Updated: Mar 14, 2022 9:28 AM
• URL: https://libguides.eur.nl/overleaf

Overleaf for LaTeX Theses & Dissertations: Home

• Using Templates on Overleaf
• Reference Managers and Overleaf
• Adding Tables, Images, and Graphs

Tips and tools for writing your LaTeX thesis or dissertation in Overleaf, including templates, managing references , and getting started guides.

Managing References

BibTeX is a file format used for lists of references for LaTeX documents. Many citation management tools support the ability to export and import lists of references in .bib format. Some reference management tools can generate BibTeX files of your library or folders for use in your LaTeX documents.

LaTeX on Wikibooks has a Bibliography Management page.

Find list of BibTeX styles available on Overleaf here

View a video tutorial on how to include a bibliography using BibTeX  here

Collaborate with Overleaf

Collaboration tools

• One version of your project accessible to collaborators via a shared link or email invitation
• Easily select the level of access for collaborators (view, edit, or owner access)
• Real-time commenting speeds up the review process
• Tracked changes and full history view help to see contributions from collaborators
• Labels help to organize and compare different versions
• Chat in real time with collaborators right within the project

How to get started writing your thesis in LaTeX

Writing a thesis or dissertation in LaTeX can be challenging, but the end result is well worth it - nothing looks as good as a LaTeX-produced pdf, and for large documents it's a lot easier than fighting with formatting and cross-referencing in MS Word. Review this video from Overleaf to help you get started writing your thesis in LaTeX, using a standard thesis template from the Overleaf Gallery .

You can upload your own thesis template to the Overleaf Gallery if your university provides a set of LaTeX template files or you may find your university's thesis template already in the Overleaf Gallery.

This video assumes you've used LaTeX before and are familiar with the standard commands (see our other tutorial videos  if not), and focuses on how to work with a large project split over multiple files.

Add Institutional Library contact info here.

Contact Overleaf   or email [email protected]

5-part Guide on How to Write a Thesis in LaTeX

5-part LaTeX Thesis Writing Guide

Part 1: Basic Structure corresponding  video

Part 2: Page Layout corresponding  video

Part 3: Figures, Subfigures and Tables   corresponding video

Part 4: Bibliographies with Biblatex corresponding video

Part 5: Customizing Your Title Page and Abstract corresponding video

ShareLaTeX Joins Overleaf!

Read more about Overleaf and ShareLaTeX joining forces here

Link your ORCiD ID

Link your ORCiD account to your Overleaf account.

See Overleaf news   on  our blog.

• Next: Using Templates on Overleaf >>
• Last Updated: May 18, 2021 1:57 PM
• URL: https://overleaf.libguides.com/Thesis

because LaTeX matters

\documentclass{book, report, article or letter}.

A LaTeX document starts with the command \documentclass [option] {type} . The most common document-classes in LaTex are:

All of them are similar, except letter. The main differences can be summerised as follows:

• An “article” does not provide “chapter”, whereas “book” and “report” do. Thus, the first structuring element of an “article” is \section{name} .
• In a “book”, a header is automatically added to each page indicating the page number as well as the chapter name on even pages and the section name on odd pages
• A “book” is always 2-sided whereas in a “report” or “article” you have to specify it by using the “twoside” option. In addition, in a “book” and “report” the “titlepage” and “abstract” will take a whole page each, which is not the case for “article”. In an “article”, you can use the options “titlepage” and “abstract”.
• The “letter” provides a US-type letter format.

Available document structure commands:

Book: \part{}, \chapter{}, \section{}, \subsection{}, \subsubsection{}, \paragraph{}, \subparagraph{} .

Report: \part{}, \chapter{}, \section{}, \subsection{}, \subsubsection{}, \paragraph{}, \subparagraph{} .

Article: \part{}, \section{}, \subsection{}, \subsubsection{}, \paragraph{}, \subparagraph{} .

Letter: A letter does not know the same structuring commands as other formats, but more specific commands like \signature{}, \address{}, \opening{} and \closing{} .

Except \part{} , all structuring commands build a hierarchy. They have a standard formating and numeration.

Other less common document-classes:

• “proc” for a protocol (two columns by default and smaller borders on the left and right)
• “slides” for a presentations
• “minimal, a prototype for your own document type

You can always change the standard document types, by adapting the *.cls-file to your needs.

Share this:

One comment.

16. September 2018 at 17:39

Posted eleven years ago and still relevant.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Yan Brailowsky

Université Paris Nanterre, Société Française Shakespeare

Writing a thesis / book using LaTeX

When it comes to writing a long work with bibliographic references, indexes, and so on, I highly recommend the use of the LaTeX typesetting system (pronounced ‘lah-tek’). Used with BibTeX (BIBliography TeX), LaTeX makes for high-quality typesetting for book-length documents in the Humanities.

Dario provides a very clear visual introduction to show how LaTeX typesets a text — in other words, what LaTeX does to make a standard and ugly-looking text typed on a computer look like a real, professional-looking book which adheres to professional typesetting rules used by commercial publishers.

Instead of trying to figure out what the correct indentation, spacing between words and punctuation, and so on, let LaTeX do it for you. The result is impressive.

Screenshot of TeXShop, a TeX previewer for Mac OS X:

But there is more than mere good looks to LaTeX: with BibTeX , you can also use a database of bibliographic references which you can then insert in your documents.

BibTeX  formats the citation for you, following rules define by you. Do you need your references to follow the MLA citation guidelines? Do you need the same document to follow other citation guidelines the week after that? Instead of changing each citation style manually,  BibTeX allows you to select a reference ‘style’ and then your references are automatically formatted following that style. Also, LaTeX/ BibTeX keep track of the citations and format them accordingly: no more need to keep track of those op. cit. and ibid. , that is automatically updated every time you typeset your document.

I use TeXShop and BibDesk for LaTeX and BibTeX respectively. These work for OSX and provide extensive documentation which will help you install LaTeX on your computer easily.

Is LaTeX only for geeks?

LaTeX can be disconcerting at first.

For instance, instead of writing a text that is ‘justified’ as you write, you must proceed in two steps: first, you write your text, and then you tell LaTeX to typeset it to see what it looks like on a page. At first, it might seem bizarre because you don’t see what your text ‘looks like’ instantly as you write (with the proper margins, etc.): you must ask LaTeX to show it to you. In this case, the mental transition from the way a typical word processor works to how LaTeX works might take you a few minutes.

Also, LaTeX uses a number of weird-looking codes to signal that a word is emphasized or that a block of text is an indented quotation or that a group of words is a section title. Once you’ve understood the idea that what you’re doing is simply structuring your text and writing the command that you want, you’re out of the woods. The mental effort to switch to this kind of thinking usually takes about an hour — not of work, only that it takes time to ‘accept’ the fact that you now see what you are asking the computer to do.

No last-minute surprises

Not only will your document look better with LaTeX, it is also a much much more reliable way to process big documents . You will no longer have unwieldy documents that crash mysteriously, page numbering that does not tally and footnotes that disappear on the day you have to hand in your manuscript to the printer. If there is a problem with your file (for instance, you forget to say where an indented quote ends), LaTeX tells you what the problem is and how to fix it.

Even though people often say that Word is WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) software, I believe LaTeX is actually truer to that spirit : if you want a word emphasized — not the empty space or the comma that comes after it — you can see it with LaTeX. With Word, you might not discover this until you see a quirk in your page layout. LaTeX offers no other surprise than a superb layout.

Sample layout for a thesis

I’ve created a package ( yanthese.sty ) which automatically includes a number of packages and formatting rules that change the default ‘book’ template. You can install it and modify it to suit your needs. Among some of the changes that I needed to implement: quotations appear smaller in size than the rest of the text; marginal notes are also smaller in size, and more legible (this is useful while you’re drafting your thesis to put notes for yourself in the margin); modified TOC and headings style; multilinguism, etc.

• Future Students
• Parents and Families

College of Engineering

• Research and Facilities
• Departments

Guide to Writing Your Thesis in LaTeX

The bibliography and list of references.

The Graduate School requires a Bibliography which includes all the literature cited for the complete thesis or dissertation. Quoting from the Graduate School’s Guidelines for the Format of Theses and Dissertations :

“Every thesis in Standard Format must contain a Bibliography which lists all the sources used or consulted in writing the entire thesis and is placed at the very end of the work. The complete citations are arranged alphabetically by last name of the author. Individual citations are not numbered. No abbreviations in titles of published works will be accepted. The full title of a book, journal, website, proceedings, or any other published work must be italicized or underlined. Citations must follow standards set by the style manual that the student is using. The bibliography for URI theses is not broken into categories.”

The List of References is not required by the Graduate School, but is the style commonly used in Engineering, Mathematics, and many of the Sciences. It consists of a numbered list of the sources used or consulted in writing the thesis in the order that they are referenced in the text. There can be either one List of References for the entire thesis, or a List of References at the end of each chapter.

Both the Bibliography and the List of References will be generated by the urithesis LaTeX class. All you need to do is add information about your sources to the references.bib file, which is a database containing all of the necessary information about the references, then cite the reference in your thesis using the \cite{} command.

Generating the Bibliography and References

The bibliography and list of references are generated by running BibTeX. To generate the bibliography, load the file thesisbib.tex into your editor, then run BibTeX on it.

If each chapter has its own list of references, you will need to run BibTeX on each chapter to update its list of references. If there is one list of references for the whole thesis (because you used the oneref option, you will only need to run BibTeX on the top level file thesis.tex .

How to Add a Bibliography Entry

When we want to refer to a source in the thesis, we place an entry for that source in the file references.bib , then cite the source in the thesis with the \cite{LABEL} command. The syntax for an entry in the references.bib file is of the form:

ENTRYTYPE is the type of bibliographic entry such as Book , Article , or TechReport , that this entry describes. At the end of this page is a list of all possible entry types .

LABEL is a unique string that is used to refer to this entry in the body of the thesis when using the \cite{LABEL} command.

The FIELDNAMEn entries are the fields that describe this entry, (ie. author, title, pages, year, etc.). Each entry type has certain required fields and optional fields. See the list of all entry types for a description of the available fields.

As an example, suppose we have a paper from a conference proceedings that we want to cite. First we make an entry in the our references.bib file of the form:

We then cite this source in the text of our thesis with the command \cite{re:toolan:as03} . This will generate a Bibliography entry that looks something like:

and a List of References entry that looks something like:

Types of List of References

The Graduate School requires that the bibliography is always at the end of the thesis and sorted alphabetically by author, therefore there is no options that affect it. The list of references is optional, therefore there are a few different ways that it can created.

By default a separate list of references appears at the end of each chapter, and are sorted by the order that they are cited in that chapter. The option oneref (see options ) will create a single list of references for the whole thesis, which due to the requirements of the Graduate School, will appear after the last chapter and before any appendices.

The option aparefs will cite references using the APA style, which is the last name of the author and year of publication, such as (Toolan, 2006), instead of the default IEEE style, which is a number, such as [1]. This option will also sort the references alphabetically by author, instead of in order of citation. The options oneref and aparefs can be used together to create a single list of references using the APA style.

Supported Bibliography Entry Types

The following is a list of all the entry types that can be used. Click on the desired type to see a detailed description of how to use that type.

• Article – An article from a journal or magazine
• Book – A book with an explicit publisher
• InBook – A part of a book, such as a chapter or selected page(s)
• InCollection – A part of a book having its own title
• Booklet – Printed and bound works that are not formally published
• Manual – Technical documentation
• InProceedings – An article in a conference proceedings
• Proceedings – The entire proceedings of a conference
• MastersThesis – A Master’s thesis
• PhDThesis – A Ph.D. dissertation
• TechReport – A report published by a school or other institution
• Unpublished – A document that has not been formally published
• Electronic – An internet reference like a web page
• Patent – A patent or patent application
• Periodical – A magazine or journal
• Standard – Formally published standard
• Misc – For use when nothing else fits

Articles that have not yet been published can be handled as a misc type with a note. Sometimes it is desirable to put extra information into the month field such as the day, or additional months. This is accomplished by using the BIBTEX concatenation operator “#“:

Example .bib using this type:

Books may have authors, editors or both. Example .bib using this type:

Inbook is used to reference a part of a book, such as a chapter or selected page(s). The type field can be used to override the word chapter (for which IEEE uses the abbreviation “ch.”) when the book uses parts, sections, etc., instead of chapters

Incollection is used to reference part of a book having its own title. Like book , incollection supports the series, chapter and pages fields. Also, the type field can be used to override the word chapter.

Booklet is used for printed and bound works that are not formally published. A primary difference between booklet and unpublished is that the former is/was distributed by some means. Booklet is rarely used in bibliographies.

Technical documentation is handled by the manual entry type.

References of papers in conference proceedings are handled by the inproceedings or conference entry type. These two types are functionally identical and can be used interchangeably. Example .bib using this type:

It is rare to need to reference an entire conference proceedings, but, if necessary, the proceedings entry type can be used to do so.

Master’s (or minor) theses can be handled with the mastersthesis entry type. The optional type field can be used to override the words “Master’s thesis” if a different designation is desired:

The phdthesis entry type is used for Ph.D. dissertations (major theses). Like mastersthesis , the type field can be used to override the default designation. Example .bib using this type:

Techreport is used for technical reports. The optional type field can be used to override the default designation “Tech. Rep.” Example .bib using this type:

The unpublished entry type is used for documents that have not been formally published. IEEE typically just uses “unpublished” for the required note field.

The electronic entry type is for internet references. IEEE formats electronic references differently by not using italics or quotes and separating fields with periods rather than commas. Also, the date is enclosed within parentheses and is placed closer to the title. This is probably done to emphasize that electronic references may not remain valid on the rapidly changing internet. Note also the liberal use of the howpublished field to describe the form or category of the entries. The organization and address fields may also be used. Example .bib using this type:

The nationality field provides a means to handle patents from different countries

The nationality should be capitalized. The assignee and address (of the assignee) fields are not used, however, they are provided. The type field provides a way to override the “patent” description with other patent related descriptions such as “patent application” or “patent request”:

The periodical entry type is used for journals and magazines.

The standard entry type is used for formally published standards. Alternatively, the misc entry type, along with its howpublished field, can be used to create references of standards.

Misc is the most flexible type and can be used when none of the other entry types are applicable. The howpublished field can be used to describe what exactly (or in what form) the reference is (or appears as). Possible applications include technical-report-like entries that lack an institution, white papers and data sheets.

Additional Comments

Because we are effectively creating multiple bibliographies, (one for the actual bibliography, and one for each list of references), the two LATEX commands \bibliographystyle{} and \bibliography{} are not used. They have been redefined to do nothing, and the equivalent of these commands are done automatically when necessary.

When there is a reference that should be included in the bibliography, but does not need to be explicitly referenced in the thesis, use the \nocite{} command. This command works like the \cite{} command, except it does not put the citation in the list of references, only in the bibliography. The \nocite{} command must appear after the first \newchapter{} command, or it will be ignored.

When using the option aparefs , and a citation does not have an author, (such as often occurs with a web page), the key field can be used to specify what to use in the citation instead of the author’s name.

About the Bibliography Format

The bibliography format used by the urithesis class is based on the IEEE format. See the article “How to Use the IEEEtran BIBTEX Style” by Michael Shell for more details.

Start your projects with quality LaTeX templates for journals, CVs, resumes, papers, presentations, assignments, letters, project reports, and more. Search or browse below.

Popular Tags

Have you checked our knowledge base ?

Message sent! Our team will review it and reply by email.