Inspired by Master Thesis draft

To improve the look of the document by:
* switching to using PostScipt fonts (instructions)
* You can also turn off hyphenation or at least limit its use with "\hyphenpenalty=5000 \tolerance=1000"

Next, links to the suggested master thesis outline:
Prof. Gerald Maguire's suggestions

Some links to the LaTeX templates of Master thesis:
Thesis template files
Rice University's
LaTeX Classes for KTH Theses
LaTeX title page samples

LaTeX macro packages for various proceedings

Here is a list:
1. Springer - LNCS

Converting Visio drawing to .eps file

Most probably you are exporting from Visio through a Postscript driver to a PS file. It seems that Visio cannot correctly set the bounding boxes for strings when printing to a Postscript driver. There are two workarounds: Use the older Visio 2000 that has buil-in Postscript Export.
Or: Use Vision 2003 and generate a PDF (!) using the Adobe Acrobat's Export-To-PDF button in Visio. Then open this PDF in Adobe Acrobat. Possibly, you need to delete some "post-it" comment boxes that were inserted. Then save it as EPS (set PostScript Level 2 and outline fonts in Settings of EPS export filter). Then, open it in gsview (freeware) and set the bounding box with "File - PS to EPS". The output is correct Postcript without any cut-off strings.

There exists two other ways.

Steps:
1. Save visio selection to .emf file.
2. Download PostScript printer drivers for Windows and install it.
3. Download EMFtoEPS tool and run it.
4. Select ps printer from the properties menu and save selection as .eps file.
5. Open .eps file in GSview.
6. From File menu choose "Ps to Eps" and check "recalculate bounding box" checkbox.

or alternative way:
1. Download PostScript printer drivers for Windows and install it.
2. Open visio file and print selection into .ps file via PS Printer.
3. Open .eps file in GSview.
4. From File menu choose "Ps to Eps" and check "recalculate bounding box" checkbox.

However, the better way to make .eps file is to use either xfig tool (from X-Cygwin) or Inkscape - Open Source Scalable Vector Graphics Editor

LaTeX tip #8

To doublespace more than a paragraph, include "\usepackage{setspace}" in the header of the document before \begin{document} and put the command \doublespace before the text you want doublespaced. To go back to single spacing, use the \singlespace command. You can also use the command \onehalfspace for an extra half line between each line.

Ideas inspired by "opposing" experience

Yesterday I had an experience of opposing master thesis. For the reading of this work I devoted 1.5 day. The author did a huge implementation based on the idea of virtual web-cluster. Although his thesis draft was very good on the level of details, its style was poor. It was really complicated to read and understand from the first trial.
I thought it is a good idea to collect all writting tips that I've seen until now. It is always useful to follow the suggestion and tips written by authors who published a significant number of works.


The elements by W. Strunk
S. Zdancewic's tips
How to by S.P. Jones's
Advices by Mark Leone
Paper Writing and Presentations
Writing Technical Articles

LaTeX tip #7

If you want to reset the numbering of theorems each time you change sections and you want to reset the numbering of notes each time you change chapters, the preamble would contain these lines:

\makeatletter

\renewcommand{\thetheorem}{\thesection.\arabic{theorem}}

\@addtoreset{theorem}{section}

\renewcommand{\thenote}{\thesection.\arabic{theorem}}

\@addtoreset{note}{chapter}

\makeatother

More on the same topic: Tips of MacKichan Software, Inc. and Using the amsthm Package

LaTeX tip #6

The summation and product symbols are ugly using \prod and \sum only. Adding the \displaystyle at the beginning of the math (inside the $...$) will often make complicated math render more nicely.

More on the same topic: Math in LaTeX