A LaTeX document class for authoring masters' or doctoral thesis at the Technion IIT, in conformance with the Technion's formatting requirements, and a sample thesis using this LaTeX class, the files and directory structure of which can serve as a template for an actual thesis.
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Deploy a recent LaTeX distribution like (TeXLive or MikTeX, 2018 or later).
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Invoke the
latexmkMake-like tool included in your TeX distribution, at the thesis' root folder (wherethesis.texis located), like so:latexmk -xelatex thesis
The template, as distributed, should compile without error (but with some warnings); once you've compiled it you have a thesis.pdf file, which you should read for additional information.
Why this latexmk tool? Building/compiling the thesis requires multiple invocations of the xelatex processor, interspersed with invocations of other tools (biber, makeindex) - for bibliography, indices, table-of-contents, etc. In fact, even plain-vanilla latexmk requires a bit of help to ensure it invokes make_glossaries (details in .latexmkrc). TeX IDEs (like TeXStudio, WinEdt, Kile) will typically not be able to "figure it all out" by themselves, and will thus fail to properly build the thesis.
If you're on a Unix-like system, there is also a Makefile which offers a little more functionality, like archiving and symlinking; see this description. If you don't know what a Makefile is - never mind.
You modify it until it becomes your own actual thesis:
- Replace meta-data / general information in
misc/thesis-fields.texwith your own details: Author name (you're the author), advisor/supervisor name, thesis title etc. - Entirely delete some files (e.g. sample chapters you won't be using, and graphics files they use)
- Add files of your own (chapters, graphics, bibliographies etc.)
Your TeX distribution must include the appropriate packages for supporting the use of Hebrew in (Xe)LaTeX. Specifically, the Culmus fonts should be available, as one of them (David CLM) is used by default. In past versions, the template relied on the babel package and the Jerusalem and other old-style fonts; this is no longer the case: the polyglossia and the bidi packages are now in use. Still, Hebrew is tricky and some packages have either compatibility issues with polyglossia/bidi, or must be loaded before bidi.
As of early 2022, this template works seamlessly with Overleaf --- if you set the compiler to XeLaTeX version 2018. To do so, first clone the (up-to-date) Overleaf template, then click the Menu button on the top left corner and select XeLaTeX as the compiler and 2018 as the Tex Live version.
If you've found this file within some archive or on one of the Technion's web server, note that the thesis template is maintained as a GitHub repository. Always go there for the latest version.
- (Hopefully) maintained to be in conformance with the Technion graduate school's requirements from Ph.D. theses (Hebrew version).
- Supports printing everything just once, into a single PDF file, in a single run, with all of the spacing arranged properly. This may sound trivial if you don't write in Hebrew, but it is a small hell to get this all to work without having to insert empty pages in your LaTeX, print sections separately, flip directions of the printed versions etc. No more!
- Has both a pre-thesis-defense mode, for the version sent to your thesis readers, and a post-defense mode for the copies you submit to the library, give to your friends/wife/parents/children etc.
- Various convenience features (most of them outside of the document class file and in an optional
.stystyle file)
This class was adopted as the [official Ph.D. thesis template]((https://graduate.cs.technion.ac.il/en/graduate-studies/graduation/hagasha/) of the Technion Faculty of Computer Science, in 2013. Numerous Ph.D. and M.Sc. candidates have used it already, but we don't have any statistics.
- Current maintainer: Eyal Rozenberg
- Original author: Dan Kenigsberg
- Contributor: Ido Tal
| If you have... | then you should... |
|---|---|
| question about using the thesis template | write the maintainer |
| bug / mistake you'd like to report | file it as a new issue on the issues page |
| suggestion or feature request regarding the template | file it as a new issue on the issues page |
| question regarding the thesis submission process | Contact your department's graduate studies secretariat. |
| question regarding the Graduate School's guidelines for theses | Contact the "conclusion-stage" department at the Graduate School (Contact info: English, Hebrew) |
the ability to help the maintainer get his @technion.ac.il email address back |
write the maintainer |
| some other kind of feedback | write the maintainer |
To understand the directory structure here, think about a printed book: It can be divided into three parts: Front matter, main matter, back matter. (But this gets a bit confused when you have a Hebrew version of the front matter at the end of your thesis submission... ) This division induces the following structure:
thesis.tex
The main file which you compile and includes/uses everything else
(it has some additional comments and explanations)
front/
abstract.tex Thesis abstract (and extended Hebrew version of it)
personal-acks.tex Personal acknowledgements
abbrevs.tex Abbreviations and notation
pubinfo.bib mini-bibliography for listing venues in which the thesis work was published
main/
*.tex Main chapters of your thesis:
(possible) Introduction
(possible) Preliminaries/Experimental setup
Chapters with actual results
(possible) Summary/conlcusions
(possible) Open questions
back/
*.bib Bibliographies
graphics/
*.pdf
*.png
*.eps ...better use cropped PDFs instead
misc/
thesis-fields.tex A file setting the thesis author, subject, etc.
LaTeX resources you need for compiling your thesis:
iitthesis.cls The document class
iitthesis-extra.sty An additional useful "style file" you are advised to use; it is not necessary for compiling your thesis with the document class
LaTeX resources you might add:
my-general.tex Your own general-purpose LaTeX macros/definitions
my-thesis-specific.tex Your own macros/definitions specific to just the thesis
README.md
this file
Makefile
Does some build/cleaning automation for you
.latexmkrc
Extra rules for the latexmk too