LaTeX Independent Study Template

LaTeX files for Independent Study at The College of Wooster

Quick Start

1. Open main.tex
   • Comment the \documentclass declaration on line 25 and uncomment the declaration on line 34 and adjust the options to use what you need for your IS (see exampleis_manual.pdf for the available options)
   • Edit the information around the \title declaration on line 97
   • Edit the abstract on line 145
   • Edit the dedication on line 154
   • Edit the acknowledgements on line 164
   • If you do not have publications then comment out lines 202 through 205
   • Comment out line 235 if you do not have a Preface
2. Chapters are stored in the chapters folder
   • Edit the contents of the chapters/introduction.tex and other chapters to have your IS text
   • If you have more than three chapters just make a new file called chapter#.tex and put %!TEX root = ../main.tex (line 1) \chapter{your chapter title}\label{yourchapterlabel} (line 2) as the first and second line of the file
     • Uncomment lines 256 through 260 in main.tex as needed
   • The Introduction is labeled as Chapter 1 in the IS
3. Images are stored in the figures folder
   • The allowed file types are JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and PDF
   • Use the command \woopic{picturename}{scalingfactor} to include your picture
     • File names cannot have spaces in them and the scaling factor must be between 0 and 1
     • See Chapter 3 in the exampleis_manual.pdf for examples of including figures
4. Appendicies are stored in the appendicies folder
   • Comment out lines 271 through 275 of main.tex if you do not have any appendicies otherwise edit the appendix title after the / to be the title of your appendix document
5. Source code to be included in the IS is stored in the source folder
   • Source code can be included using \lstinputlisting[caption=caption text, label=labeltext]{source/filename}
   • See Chapter 2 of exampleis_manual.pdf and appendicies/cpp.tex or appendicies/java.tex files for examples of including code in an IS
6. References are in the references.bib file
   • Edit this file to have your references
7. Run pdfLaTeX (or XeLaTeX), MakeIndex (if doing an Index), Biber (to process references), pdfLaTeX (or XeLaTeX), pdfLaTeX (or XeLaTeX) to typeset your document and produce a formatted PDF version.
8. If it does not compile, then check the Cosole output to see what error is preventing the compilation, correct it, and try the sequence above again.

Info

This project aims to provide you with a template for typesetting your IS using LaTeX. LaTeX is very similar to HTML in the sense that it is a markup language. Instead of worrying about the formatting of elements, the woosterthesis class takes care of several elements so that students only need to identify the structure of their IS. Students should read the exampleis_manual.pdf document before writing, as the manual explains how to use all the custom options available, with particular attention paid to the Introduction.

Dependencies

The woosterthesis class loads several packages by default and several others through class options; it is assumed you have these installed on your system. These include the following:

alltt	amsfonts	amsmath	amssymb	amsthm	babel	biblatex
biblatex-chicago	caption	csquotes	eso-pic	eucal	eufrak	fancyhdr
float	floatfl	fontenc	fontspec	geometry	graphicx	hyperref
ifpdf	ifthen	ifxetex	inputenc	lettrine	listings	lmodern
makeidx	maple2e	mathpazo	microtype	pdftex	polyglossia	setspace
subcaption	textpos	TikZ	verbatim	wrapfig	xcolor	xltxtra

The woosterthesis class also assumes you are using pdfTeX or XeTeX (support for postscript based TeX has been dropped as of 2006/11/17).

Usage

The template has been tested with Overleaf, as well as TeXLive installs on OS X and Windows 11. Some students have reported receiving processing time warnings from Overleaf and a request to move to a paid subscription, for that reason I recommend using a locally installed TeX instance instead of a cloud-based one.

The class does support the use of system fonts such as Times New Roman through the XeLaTeX engine. The definitions of fonts for XeLaTeX can be found in the styles/packages.tex. The defaults are for a Times New Roman consistent set but suggestions of other cross platform font options are listed in comments.