latex-mimosis: A minimal & modern template for your thesis

This repository contains a minimal & modern LaTeX template for dissertations and other university documents.

For the impatient or curious: this is what the template looks like. You may also want to take a look at my my Ph.D. dissertation, which uses a predecessor of this template.

Users

Before going over the details of this template, why not look at how it looks in practice? The following documents have been typeset with this template (or a slightly modified variant of it):

• S. Almasian, Learning Joint Vector Representations of Words and Named Entities, M.Sc. thesis, Heidelberg University, 2018
• K. Hanser, Visualization of Coherence in Meteorological Data, M.Sc. thesis, Heidelberg University, 2018
• P. Jung, On the Frame of Reference in Flow Visualization, M.Sc. thesis, Heidelberg University, 2019
• B. Rieck, Persistent Homology in Multivariate Data Visualization, Ph.D. thesis, Heidelberg University, 2017

Advantages

This template aims to be…

• clean: no LaTeX trickery
• minimal: no unnecessary adjustments and decorations
• modern: typographically pleasing

It is specifically suited for the European education system because it uses A4 paper size by default—this can be easily adjusted to fit your personal needs, though (see below).

The class is based on KOMA-script, so it should be flexible enough to suit virtually any purpose.

How to use

If you are using Overleaf, download latex-mimosis in the gallery. If you want to use the template locally, follow these steps:

• Clone this repository
• Copy the file mimosis.cls into your document directory
• Add \documentclass{mimosis} to your document preamble
• Optionally copy the file Thesis.tex and the files in Sources as a starting point
• Use latexmk to build the document using pdflatex
• Write a nice thesis in LaTeX

How to customize

The template is based on the excellent KOMA-script class. You can thus change the appearance of many things quite easily. For example, if you want the thesis to use the letter paper format, just add

\KOMAoptions{paper=letter}

in the preamble of the document and recompile.

Example

The repository comes with an example file called Thesis.tex. Please take a look at this file in order for more detailed instructions about how to use the class.

It is recommended to use latexmk to build your LaTeX documents. Your distribution might already have this command. If so, you can use

latexmk

in the main directory of this repository in order to build the example file.

Required packages for the class

The template uses various LaTeX packages that you should install using your favourite LaTeX distribution. Some distributions already do this automatically when you compile the document for the first time. Others require manual updates. Please refer to the documentation of your LaTeX distribution for more details.

Here is a list of packages that you need (I am using the package name as specified on CTAN):

• amsmath
• amsthm
• booktabs
• csquotes
• dsfont
• glossaries
• graphicx
• fontspec (only for LuaTeX and XeTeX users)
• ifluatex
• ifpdf
• ifxetex
• inputenc (only for pdfTeX users)
• koma-script
• makeidx
• paralist
• setspace
• siunitx
• subcaption
• xcolor
• xspace

Required packages for the example document

Typesetting the example document requires an additional set of packages. Feel free to remove them, though—they are only used for showcasing how a real document might look like.

• biblatex
• bookmark
• etoolbox
• hyperref
• metalogo

For pdfTeX users:

• ebgaramond
• sourcecodepro

For LuaTeX or XeTeX users:

• The Minion Pro font; please use your favourite search engine for this or change the line \setmainfont{Minion Pro} in the preamble to another font (or leave it out entirely)

License

The template uses the MIT license. Please see the file LICENSE.md in the main directory of the repository for more details.

Known issues

The superscript citation style is not compatible with all citation styles. For example, to use the citation with chem-angew, please use an adjusted \supercite command such as this one:

\DeclareCiteCommand{\supercite}[\mkbibsuperscript]
{\bibopenbracket%
	\usebibmacro{cite:init}%
	\let\multicitedelim=\supercitedelim
	\usebibmacro{prenote}}
{\usebibmacro{citeindex}%
	\usebibmacro{cite:comp}}
{}
{\usebibmacro{cite:dump}%
	\usebibmacro{postnote}%
	\bibclosebracket%
}

Thanks to Carlo Botha for this contribution!

Extensions

Table of contents per chapter

If you want a small table of contents for each chapter, update mimosis.cls as follows:

\usepackage[automark,headsepline,plainheadsepline]{scrlayer-scrpage}
\pagestyle{scrheadings}
\automark[section]{chapter}

\lehead*{\headmark}
\cehead{}
\rehead{\headmark}

\lohead{\headmark}
\cohead{}
\rohead*{\headmark}

\newpairofpagestyles[scrheadings]{chapter}{%
	\KOMAoptions{headsepline=false,plainheadsepline=false}%
	\ihead*{}%
	\ohead*{}%
}

\newpairofpagestyles[scrheadings]{part}{%
	\KOMAoptions{headsepline=false,plainheadsepline=false}%
	\ihead*{}%
	\ohead*{}%
}

\renewcommand*\chapterpagestyle{chapter}

\renewcommand*\partpagestyle{part}

This extension was contributed by Nikos Antoniadis in issue 16. If you want to add this as proper extension or configurable parameter, please let me know!

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

1. Does the template support bold fonts?

Yes. First of all, you can change the default font (my personal suggestion is to use the fontspec package and xelatex or lualatex; then, changing your font is as easy as using \setmainfont). Second, note that in older TeX distributions, the font ‘EB Garamond’, shipped in the ebgaramond package, does not ship with a bold variant. Consider updating your TeX distribution or manually replacing the font. This is not an issue with this package—please see issue #10 for more information.

Contributing

If you require additional features, find some bugs, or just have some generic inquiries, please just open an issue in this repository.

Contributors

Here is a list of contributors:

• Nikos Antoniadis (nikosantoniadis): mini-TOC extension
• Giuseppe (giuscri): improved cleanup operations
• Carlo Botha: fixed \supercite for chem-angew citation style
• Miloslav Číž (drummyfish): grammar/style corrections for README file
• Bastian Rieck (Pseudomanifold): original creator and maintainer
• Diego A. Rodriquez (diarodriguezva): support with ebgaramond updates
• TonyY: latexmkrc updates and fixes; hyperref fixes