This distribution provides a community-maintained LaTeX template for writing a dissertation that conforms with UBC Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS) specifications.

This template provides a document class builds on top of the standard LaTeX book class to ensure much better compatibility with standard LaTeX packages. The functionality is implemented using the commonly available packages found in most LaTeX distributions such as MacTeX, MikTeX, and TeXLive. (Give thanks to the countless volunteers who write and maintain these many TeX packages!)

The template has some documentation in doc.pdf. This documentation is itself written using the template, and the content is found in ack.tex, glossary.tex, and intro.tex. diss.tex is the main file but all the content is contained in the other files which are included from diss.tex using \include.

You will almost certainly need to use additional LaTeX packages for your dissertation. There are some pointers in diss.tex and doc.pdf to useful packages for handling common problems/requirements. You may need to manually install these for your distribution; teTeX in particular seems to ship with a much smaller package base.

GPS has very strict formatting requirements, and these requirements may change. You should review the GPS Thesis Specifications and Formatting Requirements. GPS is very lenient with font choice providing the fonts are used consistently. Please open an issue if GPS requires you to make formatting or organization changes: I'll fold those changes into the template for future students.

Please report problems with the template by opening an issue on Github. Before reporting a problem, please ensure that:

1. you have the latest version of the template (see the abstract in doc.pdf),
2. you are using the latest version of your TeX distribution,
3. your question isn't answered in the FAQ file, and
4. you've exhausted your local LaTeX wizard's help. Tip: You can often find your own wizard by buying beer for a CS grad at Koerner's.

When reporting a problem BE SURE TO INCLUDE:

1. the version used of this template
2. details on the operating system and TeX distribution you are using (e.g., Windows XP and MikTeX 2.5, SuSE Linux 10 and its bundled installation, MacOS X 10.5.4 and MacTeX 2007),
3. the log file (likely called diss.log).