Start from a template that already compiles
Theses, journal articles, CVs, posters, letters and lecture notes, each one tested to compile on the first click. Plus how to turn your own project into a template for your team.
3 min read
- Author
- Published
- Reading time
- 3 min
Most LaTeX templates you find online come with a catch. The class file is from 2011. It needs a package that isn't installed. The README says "compile with XeLaTeX" in a place you didn't look. Before you've written a single sentence, you've spent an afternoon getting someone else's document to build.
Every templates in Luzbase is checked to compile before it goes into the gallery. You pick one, and you're writing within seconds.
What's in the gallery
The gallery has more than 40 official templates, labelled By Luzbase, across these categories:
- Thesis: a general thesis template, plus formats built to specific universities' rules
- Journal article: a standard article, a plain article, the Cambridge University Press journal format, and templates for individual journals
- CV / Résumé: AltaCV and MAltaCV, two of the most popular modern CV layouts
- Homework / Notes: lecture notes you can extend week by week
- Letter: an official memo with To, From and Date header, subject line and room for your logo
- Other: yes, there's a newspaper layout. It's more useful than it sounds for department newsletters.
Filter by category, by university, or by By Luzbase versus Community, and switch between Grid view and List view.
Using a template
You can start from a template two ways:
- From the gallery: open the template and click Use template.
- From New project: choose Template under Start from and pick from the By Luzbase, My templates, Team or Recent tabs.
The new project is yours. Change anything. The template itself stays as it was for the next person.
If you'd rather work offline for a bit, Download .zip gives you the template's files.
Your own templates
Every lab has a format: the preamble everyone copies, the macros for the group's notation, the title page the department insists on. Make it a template once and nobody has to copy it again.
From the templates page, choose Save a project as template. Pick the project and branch, give it a name and category, and set the main file. Luzbase copies the branch's current files, including changes you haven't saved as a version yet.
Then choose who can use it:
- Private: only you. If you're in a team, everyone in your team can use it too.
- Public: anyone on Luzbase can find it in Explore. Public templates are reviewed by the Luzbase team first, usually within 1–3 business days, so the gallery stays full of templates that work.
Choosing well
A template should save you formatting work, not create it. If your venue publishes an official class file, use it. If not, start with Article and change the minimum. The plainer the start, the less you'll fight it later.
