ETD Format

Format Guide

Adobe PDF is the mandatory presentation format. (See: Why PDF? in the ETD FAQ). The burden of how the document looks when it is accessed or printed is entirely the responsibility of the author.

Access issues:

Large files require large download times.
Ordering of thesis segments can be an issue if broken up into multiple files.
Recommended: Submit both a single master file and separate chapters.

Templates are available for implementing the Caltech Ph.D. Thesis Regulations in Word (.dot) and TeX (.tgz or .zip; originally developed by Daniel Zimmerman). TeX documents using macro packages (RevTeX, AMSTeX, etc.), if depositing source files, should specify the macros used.

All fonts used should be embedded in the document. Authors are strongly encouraged to use the 4 font families known to reproduce accurately across virtually all computing platforms (Helvetica, Times, Courier, and Symbol). Documents authored in TeX MUST use Type 1 PostScript fonts.

External or internal links to multimedia files are acceptable. If multimedia elements are used in the document, file formats should be identified in the abstract. Acceptable file formats include the following:

Images:
GIF (.gif)
JPEG (.jpeg)
PDF (.pdf) use Type 1 PostScript fonts
TIFF (.tif)

Video:
Apple QuickTime (.mov)
Microsoft Audio Video Interleaved (.avi)
MPEG (.mpg)

Audio:
AIF(.aif)
CD-DA
CD-ROM/XA
MIDI (.midi)
MPEG-2
SND (.snd)
WAV (.wav)

Contact the CLS ETD Team (etd AT library.caltech.edu) prior to submitting other multimedia file formats.

UMI Dissertations Publishing has additional requirements for processing of multimedia-enhanced theses.