README.md

ISW LaTeX Templates

This is the repository for LaTeX document templates for student theses, reports, and other documents.

If you are just interested in finding the most recent class that you want to use, then look no further but table [1].

Class	Purpose	Version
iswartcl	General documents	1.5.2
iswbook	Book-like documents	1.5.1
iswdctrt	Doctoral theses	1.5.2
iswstud	Student theses	1.6.1

There are three ways to obtaining the necessary .cls, .tex, .sty, and .bbx files:

1. Clone the repository and obtain the files from directory dist/
2. Download the build artifacts i.e., only the file necessary and not the whole repository from our GitLab build server (requires authentication) and unpack them to your local working directory
3. Build the files yourself after cloning this repository. Simply $ make all in the root of this directory

In the long run this will be the on and only way to obtaining the files.

[[TOC]]

Packages

Want to know which packages are loaded automatically by the respective class? Check our file PACKAGES.md and find the respective section. There are also links to CTAN for every package (though not every package actually has a CTAN page...).

Development Team

ISW LaTeX Templates was created by Philipp Tempel who both uses and continues developing the templates.

Contributing

Before sending a pull request, be sure to check out the Contribution Guidelines first.

Our repository hosted on our public GitHub repo is a mirror of the original code hosted on our local GitLab repo. If you check the .gitlab-ci.yml file, you can see there is a git --mirror command, which will automatically push the master branch to GitHub.

Requirements

LaTeX Distribution

You need an up-to-date version of a LaTeX distribution on your current operating system. It is generally advised against MikTeX, and advised for using TeXlive.

Compiler Engine

As the trend in development of LaTeX related packages and classes is to move away from pdflatex towards xelatex or lualatex, we are not providing support for pdflatex anymore. As such, you will need to compile your document using either XeLaTeX or luaLaTeX (preferably luaLaTeX, as the classes are more thoroughly tested against luaLaTeX).

Additionally, if you want to play it safe, use latexmk to build your document. Our provided .latexmkrc files include all the necessary commands to compile everything in the right order. Only requirement is access to a commandline which has latexmk on its path. Some LaTeX-IDEs also allow using latexmk instead of some weird lualatex + makeindex + ... + dvips combo.

PS: The developers are solely using latexmk, so support for users using latexmk will be the best.

Usage

You can use these document classes for a magnitude of documents such as your bachelor's or master's thesis, a simple document, or a doctoral thesis. Please read on to find out more on the general structure of a document in either document class, but also about all available document class options.

Doctoral Thesis iswdctrt

Doctoral theses may be typeset in your language of preference (as long as it is either English or German, no other language is officially supported by the document class).

\documentclass[%
  ngerman,% to allow an alternative titlepage and abstract in English
  english,% main document language needs to be loaded last
  bachelor, % Bachelor's thesis
]{iswdctrt}

Student Thesis iswstud

\documentclass[%
  english,% to allow an alternative titlepage and abstract in English
  ngerman,% main document language needs to be loaded last
  bachelor, % Bachelor's thesis
]{iswstud}

Thesis types

You have the option to set your thesis type using any of the following keys to the iswstud documentclass

Key	Description
bachelor	Bachelor's Thesis
bachelor-description	Thesis description (i.e., project expose) for your Bachelor's Thesis
bachelor-project	Bachelor's research project i.e., "Bachelorprojektarbeit"
master	Master's thesis
master-description	Thesis desription (i.e., project expose) for your Master's Thesis
study-diploma	Student research project (i.e., "Studienarbeit") for all students still enrolled in a diploma major
study	Student research project (i.e., "Studienarbeit") for master's students

Color Space

For some reason you may want to switch from RGB colorspace to CMYK color space. Simply pass the option cmyk to the document class for CMYK color space, otherwise the default rgb will be assumed.

Author Gender

Some parts of the title page are not gender neutral but are available in a male/female version (in most cases this only applies to the German version of the classes). Per default (don't ask why ;) ), the document author is assumed male. To alter this and make the titlepage female pass the female option to the documentclass, otherwise male sets an explicit male document.

Accepted Thesis

This applies to both student and doctoral theses - but is of vital importance to doctoral theses.

Per default, all theses typeset are set as draft versions i.e., they are not accepted and have not been defended (presented). This type of draft is different than LaTeX's draft setting as it displays "DRAFT" in capital letters on the titlepage no matter the draft or final option to the documentclass.

If you first hand in your thesis, it must be submitted in non-accepted version. Only after it has been successfully revised by your supervisor and has been presented, you may add the accepted option to your documentclass. Additionally, you then must set the \date of your thesis to the date of your defense.

Bibliography

Right from the start, bibliography can be included via biblatex as known from all other classes e.g., koma. Include your bib file in the preamble using \addbibresource{literature.bib} and towards the end of your document, \printbibliography to output the bibliography. The style is already loaded in the respective class, but it requires existence of file iswbib.bbx in your local working directory (or at least on your LaTeX search path). Please keep in mind that the classes are using biber for generating your references and bibliographies. As such, you must adjust your compilation toolchain to call biber instead of the outdated biblatex. IDEs like TeXstudio allow for easy changing of the default bibliography compiler. YMMV depending on your IDE. On the other hand, if you make use of latexmk, it will automagically use the right compiler toolchain so as you will not have to worry much.

Mathematics-heavy Thesis

If your thesis is highly mathematical, you should pass the mathematics option to the documentclass. This will load some more commonly used mathematics oriented packages and define several commands that can come in handy.

Code-heavy Thesis

If you fancy adding many source code listings to your thesis, we have built-in support for awesome code highlighting using the minted package. Activate it by simply providing the code option to the document class. While it may require a bit more setup and configuration of your LaTeX environment at first, it will pay off in the long run. See the minted documentation for more information.

TikZ

Tikz ist kein Zeichenprogramm, but it is very useful for drawing publication quality, camera-ready images (either by hand or using Inkspace with svg2tex). In any way, you can pass the tikz option to the documentclass in order to load additional tikzlibraries that are very often used.

Fancy Cover Page

Fancy a beautiful cover page for your thesis? You can do so, just use the \coverpage macro anywhere between \frontmatter and \maketitle.

Cover pages have two distinct additional macros:

• \coverpageimage is the path to the image that should be displayed on your cover page (in the otherwise dark gray area). This should be set like \coverpageimage{path/to/image}
• \coverpagethanks must be used if the image is not yours and you want to attribute your thanks to someones for the photo. This could for example read \coverpagethanks{Image courtesy of Elon Musk}

Above two macros need to be triggered in the document preamble i.e., before \begin{document}.

Changing Main Document Language

Writing your thesis in German but requiring an English titlepage or abstract? Or really going for an all English thesis with a German titlepage and abstract? Check with your supervisor, which language you may write in. To have your thesis compile in with the right language, you need to set the correct flags to the \documentclass. The order of languages loaded matters, as the last loaded language is the document's main language (that's LaTex' not the classes' fault).

German Document

\documentclass[
  english,% to allow an alternative titlepage and abstract in English
  ngerman,% main document language needs to be loaded last
]{isw*}

English Document

\documentclass[
  ngerman,% to allow an alternative titlepage and abstract in German
  english,% main document language needs to be loaded last
]{isw*}

Glossaries

Glossaries (like glossaries, acronyms, symbols) are supported through the glossaries package, loaded automatically (in conjunction with glossaries-extras, glossary-longbooktabs, and glossaries-extra-stylemods). Our glossaries styles is defined in iswgloss.sty and activated automatically. Without going deep into how to use glossaries (please refer to CTAN), you need to define it within your document preamble using a snippet like

% Define new glossaries type for mathematical symbols
% \newglossary{<label>}{<log>}{<out-ext>{<in-ext>}
\newglossary[slg]{symbol}{sls}{slo}{List of Symbols}
\newglossary[nlg]{notation}{nls}{nlo}{Notation}
# Load acronyms glossaries
\loadglsentries{path/to/glossaries/acronyms}
# Load symbols glossaries
\loadglsentries{path/to/glossaries/symbols}
# Load nomenclature/notation glossaries
\loadglsentries{path/to/glossaries/nomenclature}

% Make indices and glossaries
\makeindex
\makeglossaries

To type out your glossaries, use something along the lines of

% Add all glossary values and not only the ones used/referred
\glsaddall
# You can increase spacing of glossaries' table's rows
\renewcommand*{\arraystretch}{1.40}
# Type out symbols
\printglossary[type=symbol,style=isw-long-symbol-nogroup]
# Type out notation
\printglossary[type=notation,style=isw-long-notation-nogroup]
# Type out acronyms
\printglossary[type=\acronymtype,style=isw-long-acronym,nonumberlist]

That's about it for adding glossaries to your thesis/document.

Development Team

ISW LaTeX Templates was created by Philipp Tempel. It is currently actively maintained by

• Philipp Tempel
• Christoph Hinze