The thesis.cls class provides environments and commands to typeset a Ph.D. thesis with very simple title pages and style. Ideally this is the template for thesis in the Dep. of Physics at the University of Torino, Italy.
In addition to the default packages in the article class, the class includes:
graphicxfor pictures and figures,geometryfor margins,booktabsfor improved tables (withmulticolandmultirowsupport if needed),captionfor better control over captions,xcolorfor coloured output and text,fancyhdrfor fancy style,tocbibindto insert the bibliography in the table of contents (withnottocoption to avoid duplicating the Contents section in the table),titlesecto customise title page and sectioning,biblatexto handle the bilbiography (bibtexbackend,nonesorting,ieeestyle, and at most 3 names before truncating to et al.),bookmarkto load hyperref and customise metadata.
The class uses XeLaTeX to compile to have more freedom over fonts.
The class provides the following macros used to typeset the title page:
\authorfor the author name and surname,\titlefor the title of the thesis,\advisorfor the name of the Ph.D. advisor,\institutionfor the institute,\schoolfor the name of the specialisation school,\specialisationfor the name of the specialisation/department,\logofor the logo of the university/college
The following are the environments provided by the class.
{% tabs %}
{% tab title="Abstract" %}
The environment abstractpage provides a space in which to type the standalone abstract of the thesis.
{% endtab %}
{% tab title="Acknowledgements" %}
The environment acknowledgmentspage provides a standalone page for ackowledgments.
{% endtab %}
{% endtabs %}
This is a collection of commands which can be used to typeset the thesis:
{% tabs %}
{% tab title="Title page" %}
The command \maketitlepage is reminiscent of \maketitle in the standard article class. It creates a simple title page to display information.
{% endtab %}
{% tab title="Frontespice" %}
The command \makefrontespice generates a second title page to accompany the first containing more explicit information.
{% endtab %}
{% tab title="Clear page" %}
The command \cleardoubleplainpage provides clearing of two pages (without styling) to start in odd pages.
{% endtab %}
{% tab title="TOC" %}
The command \plaintoc generates a table of contents without specific styles defined.
{% endtab %}
{% tab title="Parts" %}
The command \thesispart creates a standalone page with the title of the part section. It takes one argument representing the title of the part.
{% endtab %}
{% tab title="Outline" %}
Using \outline it is possible to insert an unnumbered section containing the standalone outline of the thesis. It takes one argument representing the title of the section. It will be added to the table of contents before the first part section.
{% endtab %}
{% endtabs %}