LaTeX is a "document preparation system", not a word processor. Your working document consists of one or more text files containing your thesis content and mark-up tags, analogous to HTML. This document is then processed by a formatting program to provide a nice looking document in the output format of your choice. Postscript for printing, and PDF for viewing electronically, are popular output formats. Review additional information on how to use LaTeX to create an E-Thesis, including a thesis template.
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Figures (drawings) should scale up and down without loss of detail. I.e., they should not be bit-maps. Typically, you should draw your illustrations with a drawing program and save them in a scalable format such as SVG, WMF, EPS, and then convert them to PDF. Alternately, print to file through a PS printer driver to make a PS file then convert that to EPS and then to PDF (with GSView and/or Acrobat). You should draw your figures to the size you want in your thesis, rather than scaling them afterwards. To include graphics into your LaTeX document, use the "graphicx" package in the preamble of your LaTeX source file, and use the \includegraphics command defined therein (see example below).
Electronic theses require all materials to fit on letter sized paper. It is possible to rotate large figures and tables so that they fit sideways on the page. To do this, include the "rotating" package in the preamble of the document, and use the \sidewaysfigure or \sidewaystable environments defined therein (see example below). The above method rotates both the figure and its caption. It is also possible to rotate the figure independently of the caption using an option to the \includegraphics command.
There are packages available that substitute other PS Type 1 fonts for the default Computer Modern font in LaTeX. If these packages, e.g. "times", "helvet", and "palatino", are used they replace the Computer Modern fonts for text, but not for mathematics. If using the "latex" formatter rather than "pdflatex", the "-Ppdf" option should always be used when using dvips to generate PS from the DVI file.
The "thesis91e" document class defined at UW is now obsolete and should not be used. A properly formatted thesis can be generated using the standard "report" or "book" document classes. See the IST/SAW notes for details including a thesis template.
The "hyperref" package should be used to automatically hyperlink your PDF document (table of contents, etc.) and to link to any extra materials provided with an enhanced thesis.