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Philosophy

• KISS.
• Easy to use.
• Organized, elegant, coherent and consistent.
• Compact, but not crowded.
• Compatible with pdflatex.
• No strange packages.

Features

Requirements

• biber for the multi-bibliography support of biblatex. Also, it's nice.
• python 3 for the minted package.

Build

You can build it with your favorite LaTeX frontend.

Overleaf

Works out-of the box, no need to configure anything. Simply download this repo as .zip and then upload the archive to Overleaf as a new project.

LaTeX Workshop extension for VS Code / Codium

If you are using the LaTeX Workshop extension by James Yu, you need to add the following tools to your configuration file, under latex-workshop.latex.tools (In the UI, navigate to Latex-workshop > Latex: Recipes > Edit in settings.json):

{
    "name": "biber",
    "command": "biber",
    "args": [
        "%DOC%"
    ],
},
{
    "name": "makeglossaries",
    "command": "makeglossaries",
    "args": [
        "%DOCFILE%"
    ],
}

Also, edit the pdflatex entry as follows to include the -shell-escape argument, necessary for the minted package.

{
    "name": "pdflatex",
    "command": "pdflatex",
    "args": [
        "-shell-escape",
        "-synctex=1",
        "-interaction=nonstopmode",
        "-file-line-error",
        "%DOC%"
    ],
    "env": {}
}

Now add a new recipe, under latex-workshop.latex.recipes (In the UI: Latex-workshop > Latex: Tools > Edit in settings.json): :

{
    "name": "alcazar",
    "tools": [
        "pdflatex",
        "makeglossaries",
        "biber",
        "pdflatex",
        "pdflatex"
    ]
}

And run the alcazar recipe while on a .tex file from the project.

Note: If you constantly encounter a makeglossaries error saying that main.aux could not be found, set to false the setting latex-workshop.latex.autoBuild.cleanAndRetry.enabled (In the UI, unmark "Latex-workshop > Latex > Auto build > Clean and retry: Enabled")

Console

This project can easily be built by using the following commands with these recommended parameters. As before, -shell-escape flag is needed for the minted package.

$ pdflatex -shell-escape -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -file-line-error main
$ biber main
$ makeglossaries main
$ pdflatex -shell-escape -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -file-line-error main
$ pdflatex -shell-escape -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -file-line-error main

Requirements

This project requires:

• biber for the multi-bibliography support of biblatex.
• pygments (and thus python) for the minted package.

Usage

The file structure of Alcázar is simple and self-explanatory:

./
├── bibliography/               # BIBLIOGRAPHY
|   ├── bibliography.tex        # Bibliography generation
|   └── references.bib          # BibTeX references
|
├── figures/                    # Put your figures here
|
├── glossary/                   # GLOSSARY
|   ├── glossary.sty            # Glossary definitions
|   └── glossary.tex            # Glossary generation
|
├── opening/                    # OPENING
|   ├── resources/              # Graphics used in the opening (logos, etc)
|   |
|   ├── about.tex               # Details about the authors
|   ├── abstract.tex            # Abstract, in various languages
|   ├── acknowledgements.tex    # Acknowledgements
|   ├── dedication.tex          # Dedication
|   ├── opening.tex             # Structures the opening part of the document
|   └── publications.tex        # Your publications. Optional, comment line in opening.tex
|   └── titlepage.tex           # Title page
|
├── style/                      # STYLE
|   ├── alcazar.sty             # Style definition and configuration
|   ├── colors.sty              # Colors definition
|   └── pkgs.sty                # Only used to import packages
|
├── text/                       # TEXT
|   ├── appendix/               # Put your addendum here
|   |   ├── appendix.tex        # Appendix generation
|   |   └── thanks.tex          # Say thanks. Optional, comment line in main.tex
|   |
|   └── chapters/               # Put your chapters here
|
└── main.tex                    # The main document.

• In main.tex you will find some variable definitions, fill them in according to your thesis and the document will update all occurrences automatically.
• Fill in your details about the authors in the file opening/about.tex.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Disclaimer

This work is unrelated to any institution, and the references, logos and the like are merely an example of usage.

To-Do

• Opening
  • Cover
  • About the document
  • Abstract and keywords
  • Publications
  • Acknowledgements
  • Dedication
  • Tables of contents
  • Glossary
    • Example Entries
• Chapters
  • Example Text
  • Example Figures
  • Example Tables
  • Example Listings
• Bibliography
  • Example Citations
• Addendum
  • Example Text
  • Thanks

Style

• Compress space used by citations (small, double column)
• Compress space used by glossary (small, double column)
• Choose default serif font - Libertinus
• Choose default sans-serif font - Open Sans (unused for now)
• Choose default monospace font - IBM Plex Mono
• Default font size: 11pt
• Page size: A4 paper
• Simple and compact chapter title style
• Chapter number marker on the side margins
• Check footnote style
• Change style of paragraph and subparagraph
• Uniformize vertical skips on figures, subfigures, tables, listings, etc.

Fixes

• Inconsistent skips above and below floats, too much space sometimes.
• Inconsistent skips above and below titles sometimes
• In listings, for some reason the comments of lots of % are bugged.
• Page style not consistent in opening

Known issues

• For the two-column table of contents minitoc is used, which seems to be abandoned.