Whilst getting prepared to write my thesis I looked at the requirements the university has for the typesetting of the thesis. At Bristol these can be found here. They are roughly the same as BS4821:1990, apparently.

LaTeX isn't too far off these once you set the margins up, and change the linespaceing. But if you want headers on each page then the page number is put at the top, which is not what is required.

Anyway, I wrote the LaTeX class below, and modest documentation, to make it all a bit easier.

The jasthesis class: jasthesis.cls

Example/documentation: jasthesis.tex jasthesis.dvi jasthesis.ps

If you're writing anything in LaTeX and need a spell checker, check out 4spell.

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Versions of jasthesis.cls

2002/05/22 v0.5

First release

2002/06/07 v0.6

Suppressed page numbers on the back of the singlesided pages in the frontmatter (for picky people like Graeme Ambler :-)

2002/06/20 v0.65

Checked margins again, expanded the headings up a bit.

2002/07/19 v0.66

Stopped headings from getting squashed.

2002/07/23 v0.7

Created the \defn[..]{..} and \listofdefn commands. Now you can automatically generate a list of definitions.
Created the jasref option. It puts references in brackets and if the reference is a forward reference, or is more than 2 pages behind, it automatically gives the page number as well.
Both of these additions are not documented yet.

2003/01/14 v0.72

After feedback from Guy Charles I've made an (undocumented) jasoneside option. This, unsuprisingly, sets the margins for a singlesided printer, and when used with option jasheads gives the chapter and section in the header. It could perhaps do with making a bit more pretty.

To do:

Fix the fact that the * version of the section command doesn't work.
Do an option for putting section numbers in the margin or not.
Check sensible things happen if you don't use my headings.