LaTeX Issues for Electronic Thesis Submission

Creating PDF from LaTeX Documents

Submission of an e-thesis requires the student to submit a PDF file for viewing electronically over the Web. There are two ways to create this PDF file.

1. Generate a PostScript file, and then use a tool such as Acrobat or GhostScript to convert the PostScript file into PDF. To generate a good-looking e-thesis in PDF, Type 1 PS fonts must be used to create the original PS file. PS output is generated from a LaTeX device-independent file (DVI file) through a device driver. The commonly available (free) distributions of LaTeX, "tetex" for Unix/Linux and "MikTeX" for Windows, use a DVI-to-Postscript driver called "dvips". Since LaTeX documents are processed in one piece, a thesis is easily converted into a single PS file, and subsequently a single PDF file, as required for e-submission.

   There is a potential problem in generating PS suitable for conversion to PDF. The default mode of dvips is to use bit-map versions of the default Computer Modern fonts when it creates PS. A PS file created this way has blurry (jagged) text when converted to PDF. However, there is an option to the dvips command that imbeds the PS versions of the default Computer Modern font when it creates PS. PDF created from a PS file with embedded PS fonts will look good. The command to use is:

   dvips -Ppdf -o mythesis.ps mythesis.dvi

   when converting a file called mythesis.dvi into mythesis.ps.

2. Generate PDF directly from your LaTeX source files by using "pdflatex" instead of "latex". The pdflatex program automatically uses the Postscript fonts mentioned above. Pdflatex requires that any included images be in JPEG (the deault), PDF, or PNG formats (in contrast to standard LaTeX, which works best with EPS figures). The \pdfimage command is used to insert images into your LaTeX document if you are going to process it with "pdflatex" instead of "latex".

1. Figures are typically inserted into a LaTeX document in Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) format. Such figures will scale up and down without loss of detail if they do not contain any bit-maps. To include EPS graphics, use the "graphicx" package in the preamble of your LaTeX source file, and use the \includegraphics command defined therein (see example below).
2. Electronic theses require all materials to fit on letter sized paper. It is possible to rotate large figures and tables so that they fit sideways on the page. To do this, include the "rotating" package in the preamble of the document, and use the \sidewaysfigure or \sidewaystable environments defined therein (see example below). The above method rotates both the figure and its caption. It is also possible to rotate the figure independently of the caption using an option to the \includegraphics command.
3. There are packages available that substitute other PS Type 1 fonts for the default Computer Modern font in LaTeX. If these packages, e.g. "times", "helvet", and "palatino", are used they replace the Computer Modern fonts for text, but not for mathematics. So, the "-Ppdf" option should always be used when using dvips to generate PS from the DVI file.
4. The "thesis91e" document class defined at UW is now obsolete and should not be used. A properly formatted thesis can be generated using the standard "report" document class.
5. The current LaTeX thesis template, provided in the Preparing Your Thesis Using LaTeX course, contains a Borrower's Page. This should be deleted when submitting the thesis electronically (just edit the file thesis_frontpages.tex).
6. If your thesis contains hyperlinks to web sites or multi-media objects, the "hyperref" package can be used to include such material.

Below is a sample LaTeX layout for electronic thesis submission.

% Example LaTeX source file suitable for converting output to PDF
\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage[dvips]{graphicx}
\usepackage{rotating}
\begin{document}
\chapter{Example Figure}
\begin{figure}
\label{myfig}
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[clip=true,width=4in,height=3in]{myfigure.eps}
\end{center}
\caption{My Figure}
\end{figure}
\chapter{Example Sideways Table}
\begin{sidewaystable}
\label{mytable}
% table code goes here
\caption{My Sideways Table and Caption}
\end{sidewaystable}
\end{document}