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As many of us, I am willing to write a thesis full of maths, fancy environments and all that. Each time I investigate the internet for ideas I find myself ending on the same websites with boring thesis themes.

I would like to find new inspiring packages or templates that would enhance the usual environments you use for writing a thesis, e.g. theorems, titles, headings, bibliography, etc.

Any fresh/cool idea is welcome !

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Use the contour package for titles/headings. – Jellby Jul 31 '12 at 16:32
I think tufte-book is a great document class. :) – Paulo Cereda Jul 31 '12 at 17:15
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Did you look in Showcase of beautiful typography done in tex friends? There you will find some very nice formated thesis and some of them offer you their tex source. – Ignasi Jul 31 '12 at 17:36
@Ignasi : didn't know about that. Truly awesome ! – vanna Jul 31 '12 at 17:58
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@vanna you're right same discussion took place there too. So I'm contradicting myself apparently. However, that one is about overall finished products. What you are asking is general thesis ideas that are too broad. I'm currently about to finish mine and I know how frustrating it is to make it look good. But if you can narrow down to headers or any other particular detail, TeX.SE is known for coming up incredible answers. here is another great Q&A : tex.stackexchange.com/questions/35825/pretty-table-of-contents – percusse Aug 1 '12 at 10:16
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closed as not a real question by lockstep, egreg, Thorsten, cgnieder, percusse Jul 31 '12 at 17:37

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

2 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Suggestions:

  1. Check carefully with the institution you are doing the thesis for. They may have a mandatory or suggested style/format. If you deviate for that you will usually discover you have to convert your style to the institution's style.

  2. I would focus on content using a minimum of other packages. I recommend that for the draft stages you use article or report (maybe book).

  3. Here are some sites for alternate format if 1) allows this.

    a. http://www.latextemplates.com/ these templates are in Creative Commons.

    b. http://uk.tug.org/training/thesis/ these templates are all from European Universities and often very specific to that institution.

  4. I recommend using http://tex.stackexchange.com/ and search for each of the items you wish to personalize. These previously answered questions are a gold mine of some of the best ideas and techniques of the experts who frequent these pages.

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Good answer! You can also search CTAN to find packages that are relevant to your task. – DJP Jul 31 '12 at 17:07
+1 especially for the latextemplates.com website. It looks interesting and promising. – Harold Cavendish Jul 31 '12 at 17:33
up vote 3 down vote

Take a look at the package classicthesis. If this is too classic beautiful for you, also its derivative, arsclassica, has that classic, beautiful layout.

classicthesis is closely to Bringhurst’s ideas (see The Elements of Typhografic Style); no boldface or sans serif, but letterspaced versals and small caps, and italic in titles and heading. You may choose a nice maroon colour for the titles and headings.

arsclassica use boldface and sans serif in heading and caption, but still keeps a cool and evenly look.

Both packages have all the functionality you are asking for, including options for title page, parts, chapters, graphics, tables and bibliography.

If your university accepts ‘free’ layout of thesis, look no further.

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