LaTeX Resources

The department requires the use of LaTeX for typesetting all the documents related to graduate research. LaTeX is a popular and powerful typesetting system useful for many other things and particularly handy when dealing with complicated formulae, so we encourage students to use it in other circumstances as well.

The most popular LaTeX distributions appear to be TeX Live and MikTeX (in this order). Depending on the platform a LaTeX distribution may come with a dedicated editor. A popular alternative editor for LaTeX is Emacs with the AUCTeX package.

LaTeX is a (relatively simple) programming language rather than a visual word processor so requires a bit of learning before use. However, there are a few applications that more or less hide LaTeX under a visual word processor, which may be an interesting alternative to explore especially for beginners. The most popular such application is LyX.

Production of graduate proposals and theses

The mandatory document class for typesetting Master’s theses and thesis proposals is buthesis.cls. This document class is a relatively thin overlay over the book standard document class. The only difference between typesetting a thesis and a thesis proposal is the use of the “proposal” option for the latter. Check out our sample thesis (typeset to PDF) for documentation on how to use this document class. The comments at the beginning of the document class file may also be used for this purpose.

More LaTeX resources

The most popular book on LaTeX (written by the inventor of LaTeX himself) is LaTeX: A Document Preparation System, second edition (by L. Lamport, Addison-Wesley Professional, 1994). Electronic copies are available in several places but their legality is a grey area and so we cannot provide any links. This book is a textbook and a reference manual folded into one and is highly recommended for all LaTeX users.

Production of graduate proposals and theses

More LaTeX resources

Beginners guides

LaTeX resources

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