LaTeX Setup & Writing Guide¶

How the thesis is built, organized, and written in LaTeX.

Build System¶

The thesis uses latexmk with pdflatex. All commands run from the latex/ directory.

# Build the PDF (from project root)
bun run latex

# Clean build artifacts
bun run latex-clean

latexmk handles the full compilation chain automatically:

pdflatex (first pass — resolves structure)
biber (bibliography from references.bib)
makeglossaries (glossary entries)
pdflatex (second pass — resolves references)
pdflatex (third pass — final cross-references)

The .latexmkrc configures output to latex/build/ and defines a custom dependency for glossary generation.

File Structure¶

latex/
├── thesis.tex              # Root document — entry point
├── .latexmkrc              # latexmk configuration
├── abbreviations.tex       # Acronym definitions (acro package)
├── glossary.tex            # Glossary entries (glossaries package)
├── references.bib          # Bibliography (biblatex + biber, IEEE style)
├── prefix/
│   ├── preamble.tex        # All package imports and settings
│   └── title.tex           # Title page layout
├── chapters/
│   ├── 0_kurzfassung.tex   # Abstract (DE/EN)
│   ├── 1_einleitung.tex    # Introduction
│   ├── 2_grundlagen.tex    # Background
│   ├── 3_methodik.tex      # Methodology
│   ├── 4_implementierung.tex # Implementation
│   ├── 5_ergebnisse.tex    # Results
│   ├── 6_diskussion.tex    # Discussion
│   ├── 7_fazit.tex         # Conclusion
│   └── anhang.tex          # Appendix
├── images/                 # Figures (PNG, PDF)
└── build/                  # Compiled output (gitignored)

Document Class¶

KOMA-Script scrbook — a standard thesis document class:

\documentclass[%
    fontsize=12pt,
    paper=a4,
    BCOR=10mm,   % binding correction
    DIV=12,      % text area proportioning
    headsepline  % line under header
]{scrbook}

Package Overview¶

Core¶

Package	Purpose
`graphicx`	`\includegraphics` for figures
`tikz`	Diagrams (architecture, data flow)
`pgfplots`	Data charts (bar, line, scatter)
`siunitx`	Consistent number/unit formatting
`subcaption`	Subfigures with individual captions

Tables & Lists¶

Package	Purpose
`booktabs`	Professional table rules (`\toprule`, `\midrule`, `\bottomrule`)
`longtable`	Multi-page tables
`pdflscape`	Landscape pages for wide tables

Citations & References¶

Package	Purpose
`biblatex`	Citation management (IEEE numeric style)
`biber`	Bibliography processor
`hyperref`	Clickable cross-references and URLs
`cleveref`	Smart reference formatting (not yet added)

Typography¶

Package	Purpose
`microtype`	Microtypographic enhancements (kerning, protrusion)
`fontenc`	T1 font encoding for correct German umlauts
`lmodern`	Latin Modern fonts
`babel`	Language support (English)
`csquotes`	Context-sensitive quotation marks
`hyphenat`	Hyphenation control

Code & Algorithms¶

Package	Purpose
`listings`	Code listings with syntax highlighting
`algorithm2e`	Pseudocode algorithms

Glossary & Abbreviations¶

Package	Purpose
`acro`	Abbreviation management (`\ac{CPU}`, `\ac{GPU}`)
`glossaries`	Glossary entries (`\gls{tensorflow}`)

Writing Conventions¶

Abbreviations¶

Define in abbreviations.tex with acro:

\DeclareAcronym{CPU}{
    short=CPU,
    long=Central Processing Unit
}

Use in text:

The \ac{CPU} processes inference requests.
% First use: "Central Processing Unit (CPU)"
% Later uses: "CPU"

Glossary Entries¶

Define in glossary.tex:

\newglossaryentry{tensorflow}{
    name={TensorFlow},
    description={Google's open-source framework for machine learning}
}

Reference in text:

\gls{tensorflow} provides browser-based inference.

Figures¶

Single figure:

\begin{figure}[htbp]
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.8\textwidth]{images/example.png}
    \caption{Description of the figure}
    \label{fig:example}
\end{figure}

Stacked subfigures:

\begin{figure}[htbp]
    \centering
    \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.9\textwidth}
        \centering
        \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{images/iter1.png}
        \caption{First iteration}
        \label{fig:iter-1}
    \end{subfigure}

    \vspace{1em}

    \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.9\textwidth}
        \centering
        \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{images/iter2.png}
        \caption{Second iteration}
        \label{fig:iter-2}
    \end{subfigure}

    \caption{Overall figure description}
    \label{fig:iterations}
\end{figure}

Reference: Figure~\ref{fig:example} or Figures~\ref{fig:iter-1} and~\ref{fig:iter-2}.

Tables¶

\begin{table}[htbp]
    \centering
    \caption{Table caption}
    \label{tab:example}
    \begin{tabular}{@{}lcc@{}}
        \toprule
        \textbf{Column A} & \textbf{Column B} & \textbf{Column C} \\
        \midrule
        Row 1 & 123 & 456 \\
        Row 2 & 789 & 012 \\
        \bottomrule
    \end{tabular}
\end{table}

TikZ Diagrams¶

Architecture diagrams use TikZ with custom styles:

\begin{tikzpicture}[
    layer/.style={rectangle, rounded corners, draw, fill=#1, text=white,
                  minimum width=10cm, minimum height=0.8cm, align=center},
    arrow/.style={-{Stealth[length=3mm]}, thick, gray!70},
]
    \node[layer=blue!70] (a) {Layer 1};
    \node[layer=green!60, below=0.4cm of a] (b) {Layer 2};
    \draw[arrow] (a) -- (b);
\end{tikzpicture}

Pseudocode¶

\begin{algorithm}[htbp]
    \caption{Algorithm name}
    \KwIn{Input parameters}
    \KwOut{Output result}
    initialization\;
    \While{condition}{
        process data\;
        \If{special case}{
            handle exception\;
        }
    }
    \Return result\;
\end{algorithm}

Inline Code¶

Use \texttt{} for inline code references:

The \texttt{adapter.load()} method fetches the model.

Units and Numbers¶

Use siunitx for consistent formatting:

The inference took \SI{42.5}{ms}.
A dataset of \num{150000} images was used.
Temperature: \SI{37.2}{\celsius}

Citation Style¶

IEEE numeric style with sorting=none (citations appear in order of first use):

\cite{tensorflow2015}        % [1]
\cite{webnn2023}             % [2]
\cite{webgpu2023}            % [3]

Bibliography entries go in references.bib.

Adding a New Chapter¶

Create chapters/N_chaptername.tex
Add to thesis.tex:
```
\input{chapters/N_chaptername.tex}
```
Run bun run latex to verify it compiles

Common Issues¶

Issue	Solution
Undefined references on first build	Run again — latexmk resolves cross-references in later passes
Overfull hbox with long code strings	Use `\path` or break into shorter segments
Glossary not appearing	Ensure `\makeglossaries` is in preamble and `\printglossaries` is in document
Images not found	Check path relative to `latex/` directory (e.g., `images/file.png`)
Missing font warnings	MiKTeX auto-installs on first use — confirm with user prompt