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%************************************************
\myChapter{Introduction}\label{ch:introduction}
%************************************************
This bundle for \LaTeX\ has two goals:
\begin{enumerate}
\item Provide students with an easy-to-use template for their
Master's
or PhD thesis. (Though it might also be used by other types of
authors
for reports, books, etc.)
\item Provide a classic, high quality typographic style which is
inspired by \cauthor{bringhurst:2002}'s ``\emph{The Elements of
Typographic Style}'' \citep{bringhurst:2002}.
\graffito{\myTitle Version 1.4.2}
\end{enumerate}
The bundle is configured to run with a \emph{full}
MiK\TeX\footnote{MiK\TeX\ 2.4 or above. Furthermore,
\texttt{classicthesis}
works with most other \LaTeX\ distributions and, thus, with most
operating systems \LaTeX\ is available for. Just give it a try.}
installation right away and, therefore, it uses only freely available
fonts. (Minion fans can easily adjust the style to their needs.)
People interested only in the nice style and not the whole bundle can
now use the style stand-alone via the file \texttt{classicthesis.sty}.
This works now also with ``plain'' \LaTeX.
This should enable anyone with a basic knowledge of \LaTeXe\ to
produce beautiful documents without too much effort. In the end, this
is my overall goal: more beautiful documents, especially theses, as I
am tired of seeing so many ugly ones.
The whole template and the used style is released under the
\textsmaller{GNU} General Public License.
If you like the style then I would appreciate a postcard:
\begin{center}
André Miede \\
Detmolder Straße 32 \\
31737 Rinteln \\
Germany
\end{center}
The postcards I got so far are available at \url{http://postcards.miede.de}.
Hopefully, this thesis template is done well enough for your needs and
does not have too many flaws. So far, a couple of theses have been
typeset successfully with it. If you are interested in some
typographic details behind it, enjoy Robert Bringhurst's wonderful book.
\graffito{A well-balanced line width improves the legibility of
the text. That's what typography is all about, right?}
\paragraph{Important Note:} Some things of this style might look
unusual at first glance, many people feel so in the beginning.
However, all things are intentionally designed to be as they are,
especially these:
\begin{itemize}
\item No bold fonts are used. Italics or spaced small caps do the
job quite well.
\item The size of the text body is intentionally shaped like it
is. It supports both legibility and allows a reasonable amount of
information to be on a page. And, no: the lines are not too short.
\item The tables intentionally do not use vertical or double
rules. See the documentation for the \texttt{booktabs} package for
a nice discussion of this topic.
\item And last but not least, to provide the reader with a way
easier access to page numbers in the table of contents, the page
numbers are right behind the titles. Yes, they are \emph{not}
neatly aligned at the right side and they are \emph{not} connected
with dots that help the eye to bridge a distance that is not
necessary. If you are still not convinced: is your reader
interested in the page number or does she want to sum the numbers
up?
\end{itemize}
Therefore, please do not break the beauty of the style by changing
these things unless you really know what you are doing! Please.
\section{Organization}
A very important factor for successful thesis writing is the
organization of the material. This template suggests a structure as
the following:
\begin{itemize}
\graffito{You can use these margins for summaries of the text
body\dots}
\item\texttt{Chapters/} is where all the ``real'' content goes in
separate files such as \texttt{Chapter01.tex} etc.
\item\texttt{FrontBackMatter/} is where all the stuff goes that
surrounds the ``real'' content, such as the acknowledgments,
dedication, etc.
\item\texttt{gfx/} is where you put all the graphics you use in
the thesis. Maybe they should be organized into subfolders
depending on the chapter they are used in, if you have a lot of
graphics.
\item\texttt{Bibliography.bib}: the Bib\TeX\ database to organize
all the references you might want to cite.
\item\texttt{classicthesis.sty}: the style definition to get this
awesome look and feel.
\item\texttt{ClassicThesis.tcp} a \TeX nicCenter project file.
Great tool and it's free!
\item\texttt{ClassicThesis.tex}: the main file of your thesis
where all gets bundled together.
\item\texttt{loadpackages.sty}: a central place to load all nifty
packages that are used.
\end{itemize}
This should get you started in no time.
\section{Style Options}
There are a couple of options for \texttt{classicthesis.sty} that
allow for a bit of freedom concerning the layout:
\begin{itemize}
\graffito{\dots or your supervisor might use the margins for some
comments of her own while reading.}
\item\texttt{drafting}: prints the date and time at the bottom of
each page, so you always know which version you are dealing with.
Might come in handy not to give your Prof. that old draft.
\item\texttt{eulerchapternumbers}: use figures from Hermann Zapf's
Euler math font for the chapter numbers. By default, old style
figures from the Palatino font are used.
\item\texttt{linedheaders}: changes the look of the chapter
headings a bit by adding a horizontal line above the chapter
title. The chapter number will also be moved to the top of the
page, above the chapter title.
\item\texttt{listsseparated}: will add extra space between table
and figure entries of different chapters in the list of tables or
figures, respectively.
\item\texttt{tocaligned}: aligns the whole table of contents on
the left side. Some people like that, some don't.
\item\texttt{subfigure}: is passed to the \texttt{tocloft} package
to enable compatibility with the \texttt{subfigure} package.
\item\texttt{nochapters}: allows to use the look-and-feel with
classes that do not use chapters.
\item\texttt{beramono}: loads Bera Mono as typewriter font.
(Default setting is using no typewriter font.)
\item\texttt{eulermath}: loads the awesome Euler fonts for math.
(Palatino is used as default font.)
\item\texttt{parts}: if you use Part divisions for your document,
you should choose this option. It provides you with the command
\verb|\myPart{}| which takes care of the style and the entry
into the Table of Contents.
\item\texttt{a5paper}: adjusts the page layout according to the
global \texttt{a5paper} option (\emph{experimental} feature).
\end{itemize}
The best way to figure these options out is to try the different
possibilities and see, what you and your supervisor like best.
To make things in general easier, \texttt{loadpackages.sty} contains
some useful commands that might help you.
\section{Future Work}
So far, this is a quite stable version that served a couple of people
well during their thesis time. However, some things are still not as
they should be. Proper documentation in the standard format is still
missing. In the long run, the style should probably be published
separately, with the template bundle being only an application of the
style. Alas, there is no time for that at the moment\dots it could be
a nice task for a small group of \LaTeX nicians.
Please do not send me email with questions concerning \LaTeX\ or the
template, as I do not have time for an answer. But if you have
comments, suggestions, or improvements for the style or the template
in general, do not hesitate to write them on that postcard of yours.
%\longpage
\section{License}
\paragraph{GNU General Public License:} This program is free software;
you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the \textsmaller{GNU} General Public License as
published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but \emph{without any warranty}; without even the implied warranty of
\emph{merchantability} or \emph{fitness for a particular purpose}.
See the
\textsmaller{GNU} General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the \textsmaller{GNU} General
Public License
along with this program; see the file \texttt{COPYING}. If not,
write to
the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
Boston, \textsmaller{MA} 02111-1307, \textsmaller{USA}.
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