LaTeX Template

The LaTeX template is structured into a few folders and files:

• parts: all text files for the chapters and sections and …
  • _acronyms.tex: the definitions of acronyms you use
  • _bibliography.bib: the definitions of your BibTeX references
  • _glossary.tex: the definitions of terminologies you use
• template: all LaTeX style files for this template, that is …
  • custom_commands.sty: the definitions of custom commands
  • custom_listings.sty: definitions of languages for your listings
  • template.sty: the main file of this template
  • titlepage_*.sty: die title page for the respective text type
• data.sty: the document information
• main.tex: the main file of this document

Some of the files will be further explained in Structural elements.

You should also add some resource folders for images, tables, etc., depending on your needs.

Edit helpers

This template provides four options that enable edit helpers: notes, coloredrefs, grid and pagebreaks.

coloredrefs colors all references and URLs blue. This is nice to keep in the digital version, but you might want to disable it before printing.

edit enables the following four commands, which can help you to keep track of todos, notes, finished parts and annotations from your reviewers.

• \todo{message} to keep track of what you have to do (in red),
• \note{message} to make a simple note (in orange),
• \annot{Name}{message} to add an annotation by a reviewer (in orange),
• \done{} to simply mark something as done (in green).

grid puts a grid behind the content and frames around the text. This can help to adjust and position figures, tables and listings as well as to identify overlong lines.

pagebreaks inserts a page break before every section, sub-section and sub-sub-section. This shall just help to better navigate through the document but should not be used for the final, printed version.

Note that before finalizing this document you should deactivate the helpers. If you forgot to remove any todo, note or annotation, you will be warned by a compiler error, whilst any remaining \done{} will be removed silently.

First Steps

• Fill in your information in data.sty.

Last Steps

• Remove the edit helpers edit, grid, pagebreaks.
• You can keep coloredrefs for the digital version, but remove it for the printed one.

File names

We encourage you to split your text into separate files. This way, you do not end up with one enormous file that contains your whole document. Use the command \input for inserting these files into the main.tex.

There are common ways of structuring these files, with pros and cons:

• Simple1: one file per chapter, e.g., introduction.tex
• Simple2: one file per chapter and section (or even subsection), e.g., introduction.tex and research_questions.tex,
• Prefix1: one file per chapter, files are prefixed by the chapter numbers, e.g., 1_introduction.tex,
• Prefix2: one file per chapter and per section (or even subsection), prefixed by the chapter and section numbers, e.g., 1_introduction.tex and 1_2_research_questions.tex,
• Nested1: one file and subdirectory per chapter, where the subdirectory contains one file per section, e.g., introduction.tex and introduction/research_questions.tex, and
• Nested2: Nested1 with prefixes, e.g., 1_introduction.tex and 1_introduction/2_research_questions.tex

These structures have pros and cons:

• Sorting: Overleaf sorts the files alphabetical by default (Simple1, Simple2, Nested1). Prefixing the files by the chapter (and section) numbers (Prefix1, Prefix2 and Nested2) sorts the files the same way as they appear in the text. However, if you need to add, move or remove a section (or subsection), you need to adjust all subsequent file prefixes and update the \input commands in your main.tex. Especially in the early phase this can be a real waste of time. For Nested2 this problem is at least reduced.
• File size: The files in Simple1 and Prefix1 are still large and scrolling takes long. The other structures have smaller files, which eases scrolling.
• Searching: Overleaf does not provide a global search, just a file-wise one. You can search in the PDF using the browser’s search and then jump to the respective source code, but only in compiled text and not in comments. Hence, searching is easier in Simple1 and Prefix1 if you need to search in comments.