Guide to Writing Your Thesis in LaTeX

Step 3: Verify that Everything Works

Now that you have LaTeX, an appropriate editor, and the template files, we will now verify that you have a functioning setup. The way we will verify the setup is to have you generate the thesis from the example files included in the template.

You should not go any further in this guide until you confirm that your setup is correct.

Configure the editor to use pdfLaTeX

Throughout this guide, we will assume that you are using pdfLaTeX to generate your thesis. Some editors default to using LaTeX by default, so before continuing, make sure your editor is set to use pdfLaTeX.

Generating the Thesis

Perform the following steps to generate the pdf version of the example thesis.

  1. In your editor, open the file thesis.tex and run pdfLaTeX on it.
  2. Open the file chapter1.tex and run BibTeX on it.
  3. Open the file thesisbib.tex and run BibTeX on it.
  4. Select the file thesis.tex and run pdfLaTeX on it twice.
  5. View the pdf file thesis.pdf.

If the document generated using the unmodified template files looks like this this, you are done. Check the following list to make sure your generated thesis is correct.

  • The document should contain exactly six pages.
  • There should be no page numbers on the first three pages.
  • The fourth page should be numbered iii.
  • The fifth and sixth pages should be numbered 1 and 2 respectively.
  • The list of references should appear at the end of Chapter 1 on the same page, and contain two entries.
  • The two references at the end of the only sentence in chapter 1 should be [1, 2] and not [?, ?].
  • The bibliography should be the last page of the thesis and contain three entries. It should also be listed in the table of contents as being page 2.

You should not go any further in this guide until you confirm that your setup is correct.

What is Going on

The first time you run pdfLaTeX, it generates .aux files which contain the information needed to create the bibliography and lists of references, as well as information needed to create the table of contents, list of figures, and list of tables. When you run BibTeX on chapter1.tex it uses the file chapter1.aux to generate the list of references for that chapter. When you run BibTeX on thesisbib.tex it uses the file thesisbib.aux to generate the bibliography. The next time you run pdfLaTeX, it will include the list of references and bibliography, but citations will not be resolved, and the table of contents will be incomplete. The final time you run pdfLaTeX, all references will be resolved and the table of contents will be correct.