Thesis Template

This is a Latex thesis template based on the Master thesis template of the faculty for physics and astronomy of Heidelberg University.

Table of contents

• Requirements
• Main Latex Documents
• Folder Structure
• init.sh and Makefiles
• Latex Configurations and Tricks
• Vim Plugins

Requirements

This template was tested and used in Debian 9.

texlive package is required to have a latex system. texlive-full package is recommended to get all the necessary latex packages.

latexmk package is required for compiling the latex documents.

qpdfview package is required to view the document with the vimtex plugin. The corresponding setting can be changed if other PDF viewer is preferred. Check the vimtex plugin help file in Vim for more details.

Inkscape was used to drawing figures. A Makefile is provided to convert the .svg files to .pdf files.

Main Latex Documents

There are three main Latex documents in this repository:

1. dissertation.tex: the main document for the thesis.
2. separated_pages.tex: the main document for separating pages out of the thesis pdf file.
   Run texdoc pdfpages in the command line for more details.
3. standalone_test.tex: the main document for trying out figures with the standalone package.
   Run texdoc standalone in the command line for more details.

Folder Structure

The directory are organized as follow:

• The chapters of the thesis are put into their own sub-folders.
• The figures for each chapter should be put in the figures/ folder in each chapter sub-folder.
• The Inkscape drawings should be put in the drawings/ folder in each chapter sub-folder.

init.sh and Makefiles

• init.sh: this bash script instruct git not to touch the separated_pages.tex and standalone_test.tex, which are changed from time to time.
• Makefile: the Makefile to compile the thesis and the separate pages. The document can also be compiled with the vimtex plugin with Vim. More details in the Vim Plugins section.
• Makefile.inkscape: the Makefile to generate .pdf files from the Inkscape .svg files once there is any update in the .svg files.
  Run with the command make -f Makefile.inkscape.

Latex Configurations and Tricks

The configurations of the thesis latex document are in setup/preamble.tex file.

Some tricks are shown in the Appendix part of the example thesis PDF file.

Vim Plugins

I used Vim (neovim) for editing the latex files. I recommend the following three plugins for this task:

1. lervag/vimtex: Plugin for editing Latex files in Vim/neovim.
2. Shougo/deoplete.nvim: Plugin for automatic completion. This plugin is for neovim/Vim8.
   A similar plugin for Vim7 is Shougo/neocomplete.vim.
3. ujihisa/neco-look: Plugin for English words completion.

The configurations for above plugins are:

• Latex and vimtex:

" latex {{{
" Vim will generally autodetect filetypes automatically.  In most cases this
" works as expected, however, in some cases it will detect a file with the `tex`
" suffix as a |plaintex|.  To prevent this, one may set the option
" g:tex_flavor| in ones `vimrc` file, that is:
let g:tex_flavor = 'latex'

" truncate the length of the line
autocmd Filetype tex setlocal textwidth=79
autocmd Filetype tex setlocal spell
autocmd Filetype tex setlocal softtabstop=2 tabstop=2 sw=2
autocmd Filetype tex setlocal breakindent

" to format the tex such that vim insert a line break afte each sentence
function! AddSentenceMaps()
  imap .<Space> .<CR>
  imap !<Space> !<CR>
  imap ?<Space> ?<CR>
endfunction
autocmd Filetype tex call AddSentenceMaps()


" for vimtex
let g:vimtex_view_general_viewer = 'qpdfview'
let g:vimtex_view_general_options = '--unique @pdf\#src:@tex:@line:@col'
let g:vimtex_view_general_options_latexmk = '--unique'
let g:vimtex_compiler_latexmk = {
        \ 'backend' : 'nvim',
        \ 'background' : 1,
        \ 'build_dir' : '',
        \ 'callback' : 1,
        \ 'continuous' : 1,
        \ 'executable' : 'latexmk',
        \ 'options' : [
        \   '-pdf',
        \   '-verbose',
        \   '-file-line-error',
        \   '-synctex=1',
        \   '-interaction=nonstopmode',
        \ ],
        \}
"" about folding with vimtex
let g:vimtex_fold_enabled = 1
"" close the brace after completion
let g:vimtex_complete_close_braces = 1
"" set the width of the index window
let g:vimtex_index_split_width = 50
"" not open quickfix windwow when there is only warning
let g:vimtex_quickfix_open_on_warning = 0
"" disable recursive searching for main file
let g:vimtex_disable_recursive_main_file_detection = 1

if !exists('g:deoplete#omni#input_patterns')
    let g:deoplete#omni#input_patterns = {}
endif
let g:deoplete#omni#input_patterns.tex = g:vimtex#re#deoplete
" }}}

• deoplete:

if has('nvim')
	"  deoplete{{{
	let g:deoplete#enable_at_startup = 1
	let g:deoplete#auto_complete_delay = 0
	" Use smartcase.
	let g:deoplete#enable_smart_case = 1
	" use head matching but not fuzzy matching
	call deoplete#custom#source('_', 'matchers', ['matcher_head'])

	"use tab for auto completion
	let g:deoplete#disable_auto_complete = 0
	inoremap <silent><expr> <TAB>
				\ pumvisible() ? "\<C-n>" :
				\ <SID>check_back_space() ? "\<TAB>" :
				\ deoplete#mappings#manual_complete()
	function! s:check_back_space() abort "{{{
		let col = col('.') - 1
		return !col || getline('.')[col - 1]  =~ '\s'
	endfunction "}}}
	" }}}
endif