Pandoc Thesis Template

A template for thesis documents written in Markdown.

Installation

Docker

1. Install docker from https://www.docker.com/
2. Fetch the pandoc/extra docker image containing all dependencies, e.g. pandoc and TeX Live: make docker or docker pull pandoc/extra:latest-ubuntu

Note: You will need about 1.5GB of free disk space:

$ docker image ls
REPOSITORY       TAG             IMAGE ID       CREATED       SIZE
pandoc/extra     latest-ubuntu   4be5559759ed   6 weeks ago   1.27GB

Additional Templates

A fairly up-to-date version of the Eisvogel template is already included in pandoc/extra. It no longer needs to be downloaded and installed separately.

Usage Example

1. Maintain your references in references.bib

   Many reference management programs offer Bibtex export. One example is JabRef, which allows you to edit your Bibtex file directly.

2. Put the title of your thesis, your name and other meta information into the YAML header of thesis.md

3. Adjust optional definitions in the YAML header of thesis.md to your needs:

   • Disable extras like abstract-* or acknowledgements or restrictionnote: Remove or comment this optional definitions
   • Modify content (text) of optional definitions like abstract-* or acknowledgements or restrictionnote
   • If you like Eisvogel but want a more useful^Wconventional page header (i.e. chapter/section instead of the thesis title) activate (i.e. remove the comment mark in front of) headeralternative

4. Put your content into the markdown file thesis.md

   The default chapters correspond to a typical structure of a scientific thesis (see also @Balzert2022: Balzert et al. "Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten", 2022). You can just use this as starting point for your work ...

   Hint: You will find some help regarding the use of Markdown in the first chapter of thesis.md as well as typical number of pages for each chapter in the beginning of each chapter.

5. Pandoc uses per default the Chicago Manual of Style for citations (cf. pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#citations).

   You can search zotero.org/styles or editor.citationstyles.org/searchByName for alternative style definitions, download the corresponding .csl file to your project folder and activate the style in the corresponding default file, i.e. eisvogel.yaml or simple.yaml (option csl: XXX.csl at the bottom of the file).

6. Build the thesis:

   • Using the simple layout: make simple
   • Using Eisvogel: make eisvogel

7. Clean up:

   • To remove temporary (generated) filed: make clean
   • To also remove the generated thesis (PDF): make distclean

The above mentioned files constitute a minimal working example. To start your own project, simply clone this project and customize the files mentioned above.

Warning

When switching between templates, please make sure to make clean first! Failing to do so may lead to strange behaviour or even to weird errors.

Important

Do not use Windows + Docker directly, but via WSL:

• Install WSL (see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install), any distribution will work
• Start the subsystem to get access to its shell
• git clone https://github.com/cagix/pandoc-thesis.git to pull the project
• make docker to pull the pandoc/extra image
• make simple or make eisvogel to build the thesis
• Success!

Submitting your thesis

HSBI students submit their work as a PDF using the upload form at https://www.hsbi.de/hochschule/schriftliche-arbeiten.

A declaration of originality must also be submitted. The form can be found at "Eigenständigkeitserklärung" and must be completed, signed and uploaded together with the thesis PDF.

Preview

Example using Simple Layout

Simple Titlepage	Simple Chapter

Example using Eisvogel Template

Eisvogel Titlepage	Eisvogel Chapter

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License

This work by Carsten Gips and contributors is licensed under MIT.