RPI Thesis Toolkit
An unofficial, community-made starter. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or its Office of Graduate Education (OGE).
On this page
A LaTeX starter and plain-language guide for RPI theses and dissertations, written for first-time LaTeX users too.
Get the starter, compile your first PDF, and let one shared formatting file (rpi-thesis.cls) handle margins, page numbers, headings, contents, and references, on your own computer, on Overleaf, or both. Draft wherever you and your advisor work best, and bring each chapter in when it is ready. No programming, Git, or paid software required.
Writing an undergraduate thesis, a course paper, slides, or a poster? The writing, citation, and figure help works for you too. The title page and page layout follow RPI's graduate rules, so check your own program's requirements.
Read the guide on the website (or in this repository)
Important
The official requirements are on OGE's thesis and dissertation submission page (opens in a new tab), and RPI's official LaTeX template and the RPI seal are on RPI ITS's Thesis Preparation page (opens in a new tab). This toolkit works alongside them; always check your document against OGE's current requirements.
Download
Download the starter (ZIP): the thesis files, the guide for offline reading, and the cheat sheet (no account needed). Prefer Overleaf? Open the starter in Overleaf (opens in a new tab). The get-started guide covers both your computer and Overleaf.
Guide
Follow the core path in order, or go straight to what you need.
- Core path: Get started (your computer or Overleaf, first compile, your name on the title page) · Writing basics (headings, figures, tables, equations) · Citations (Zotero, styles) · Fixing problems (errors and getting help) · Submitting (the path to graduation and final checks)
- Go further: How it works (why LaTeX, files, and compiling) · Bring your draft (from Markdown, Google Docs, Word, a paper, or RPI's official LaTeX template) · Going further (advisor review, backups, updates, AI help, every setting) · Reviewer checklist (for advisors, committee members, and OGE reviewers)
- Tools (in your browser; nothing is uploaded): Settings builder · Convert to LaTeX · Check your references · Explain my error · Check your PDF
Looking for one task? How do I…? links each common task to the section that answers it.
Feedback and help
Questions, bugs, tips, and ideas are all welcome, whichever way suits you: the help and feedback form (no account needed), a GitHub issue, or a pull request, including one built with an AI assistant. CONTRIBUTING.md walks through each.
Privacy
The website counts page views with Cloudflare Web Analytics: no cookies and no personal data. Guide search runs in your browser and sends nothing anywhere. The offline guide in the ZIP counts nothing.
Credit and license
Written for this project by the people on the credits page, which also names the sources and tools it builds on. Want to help? See CONTRIBUTING.md and the code of conduct. The class, scripts, guides, diagrams, and website were written for this project and use the MIT license. RPI's requirements, manual, original template, seal, and name are RPI's, and tools such as LaTeX, Biber, Pandoc, and Zotero belong to their own projects: see what's ours and what isn't. To cite the toolkit itself, use CITATION.cff.