What this is

This is a template designed to ease the workflow when writing documents for the Hochschule Hannover. It is intended to be used in all sophisticated works, from lab-reports to master’s thesis's.
The project provides custom document-classes caring the HsH- prefix as well as support files. These classes extend the well known KOMA-Script classes and customize them with specific configurations, presets and provide commonly needed features.

Provided classes are:

• HsH-article
• HsH-report
• HsH-book (planed)
• HsH-standalone

Quick start guide

Recommended software

As a Tex-Distribution, MiKTeX is recommended, TexLive should also work, but I don't use it much.
To edit the .tex files, you could use any text editor, but I personally like Visual Studio Code the most, which can also be used for pretty much all other programming languages. Use the Latex Workshop extension, and you can steal my config file from here.
If you prefer a Tex-only editor, I used Texmaker in the past, and it's also very good.

If you want to use citations in your work, you should get familiar with the biblatex package and include it in your project. The classes set it up to use biber as the backend, which is more modern and has more features than the usual bibtex, but you will need to set you editor up to also use this.

I have now Idea how to start, show me!

To get you started, there is a working example Project on the example branch that has loads of tips. Check it out Online or locally using git checkout example

Quick and dirty

To get started, create a new folder for your project somewhere on your PC and create your .tex file. Copy the class file (.cls) you want to use and the HsH-logo.pdf from the src folder to your project folder. You can optionally copy the config.tex, but you can also configure everything in your preamble.

Using a proper subfolder structure

The projects also provides a recommendation for a subfolder structure, to keep things organized. You can download the .zip-Archive and unpack it or clone the repository via git clone https://lab.it.hs-hannover.de/qxx-tul-u1/latex-template-hsh.git. This has the downside of storing class files and other needed files in the ./src folder, which means it needs to be added to the path searched when running your latex command (see below).
The provided Makefile demonstrates how to run a successful build, you might want to check it out.

Compiling

The Project comes with latexmk setting, so you should be able to instantly compile using it.

Documentation

The different classes

This project provides a set of additional classes designed for use in the Hochschule Hannover, Germany. They extend the well-known KOMA-Script classes by adding styling and providing some additional commands. The provided classes are:

HsH-article

Based on the scrartcl this class is designed for quick and compact documents. It does not have chapters and therefore never breaks to a new page on its own. This class is useful for writing lab-protocols and alike.

HsH-report

This is probably the most useful class. It is based on the scrreprt and can be used for a wide variety of documents, beginning with lab-reports and ending at complete thesis. The line between article and report is somewhat blurry, so use as you see fit.

HsH-book

// To-do

HsH-standalone

A helper class based on the normal standalone class. It is designed only for creating images as separate documents to keep things organized and compiler times low. It is useful for creating graphs, circuit diagrams or other kind of complex sub documents.

Document Options

The classes accept a number of new options, which are passed to the class via \documentclass[options]{class}. All unknown options are passed to the underlying subclass and processed there. So you can use everything from the corresponding documentations.

Default Options

If you don't define something different, the classes set your project up to use the following options:

• fontsize=11pt the font size
• a4paper the paper size
• ngerman the document language
• sans the font type (Sans Serif)
• margin=0.25cm ONLY for hsh-standalone, adds an empty margin around all pages

List of all options

• german, ngerman These two options are aliases. They switch the document language to German, which affects autogenerated naming as well as the formatting of numbers. This is implemented by using an internal if switch, called \@german, which is set to true.
• english This option is the opposite of the previous ones. It sets the document language to English by setting \@german to false.
• f1 - f5 To use the correct logo of a certain faculty, you can define your faculty with these options. If none of these are present, a generic grey logo is chosen.
  The different logos correspond to different pages of the HsH-Logo.pdf, so you could change this file and therefore the used logo as long as you keep the page numbering consistent with the original.
• sans This option sets the font family to Sans Serif.
• roman The opposite of sans, sets a roman/serif font.
• todos This enables the todonotes package and allows you to use the \todo{} command. It is set up in a way that removing this option allows you to still leave \todos's in your code without breaking. NOTE: using this options will create pages that are wider than A4-format, making them non-printable!

All remaining options are passed along to the respective subclasses and processed there. This means, that you can use all the options described in their respec­tive documentations.

Packages

Provided packages

These Packages are automatically included by the class file. These are either important for provided functions or so generally useful that they are used in pretty much every project anyway.

• inputenc for input encoding, all input files (.tex files, etc.) are expected to be UTF8 encoded
• fontenc for output encoding, set to T1, if you use non-Latin characters (like Cyrillic, etc.) you need to add that
• lmodern is a font
• babel for German typesetting
• geometry for margins and stuff, (will probably be removed at some point)
• scrlayer-scrpage KOMA package for headers and footers
• scrhack KOMA package for compatibility with listings
• pgffor allows for the use of for-loops (internal)
• graphicx for importing images
• hyperref for references and links
• caption to customize captions and make references point to the beginning of the floats
• bookmark for bookmarking
• amsmath for a lot of general purpose maths features
• csquotes makes quotations easier
• ziffer is only included when the German document option is provided, sets comma as decimal

Recommended packages

These packages are recommended, but not included automatically to save compile time when they are not needed. If you want to use one of them, include it in your preamble.

• bibtex a package for citation and source management. Keep in mind, that there are multiple backends and biber is configured, if you want to continue using the old backend, type \usepackage[backend=bibtex]{biblatex} in your preamble.
• subfigure one of multiple packages, that allows you to put multiple images into a figure
• siunitx is an amazing tool for Units
• csvsimple allows you to import CSV files, which is handy if you want to display measurements
• listings allows you to include format code snippets
• pgfplots is a great maths engine, which can create amazing plots
• tikz is already included with pgfplots, but is also a nice standalone package
• circuitikz expands the previous packages with macros for circuit creation
• standalone is a package, that allows you to create simple images from sub-texfiles. This can save a lot of compile time, especially with tikz and alike.

There's more...

Commands

The classes provide a few commands of their own. Here are some explanations:

\maketitle[align]

This command is not new, but changed. It creates a title-page fitting for most use cases. You can change its alignment via the optional parameter by using on of the three options r, c or l for right aligned, centred or left aligned.
You can use the following macros to define the different information presented on the title-page:

• \author as usual, this is where you put your name. But you can also input a comma-seperated list, if more than one person has written in this file.
• \matrikelnr a new macro for your matriculation number. This is optional, but will be put next to your name if present. You can input again a comma-seperated list, if more than one author is present.
• \titlehead is for a small line left of the logo. This is usually the department or division. May be empty
• \subject is for a broad description of what your file is. "Laborbericht" for example. Can be empty.
• \title is quite obvious. The only one that must be present. I additionally accept an optional parameter which will be treated as a short form of the title and used in the header (this makes sense if your title is very long and fills your header too much)
• \subtitle is a smaller second line under the title. Can be empty
• \date is the date of your project. You can use a custom one, but if you don't set it, the current date at compile time will be used.
• \professor a new macro do define your professors name, if needed.
• \keywords will not be printed on the title-page, but rather on the end of the abstract, if you define some. They will also be but into the PDFs metadata.

\declarationAuthorship

This macro will typeset a declaration of authorship, which is needed for most academic works. It will be produced at the bottom of the current page, separated by a horizontal line.
The macro is defined in German and English and will automatically match your document language.

\abs

A helpful macro for absolute values. It can be used in maths mode and will put vertical lines around its content, that match the height of the content.
This macro is only provided, meaning if another package defines it, its definition will be used.

HsH-Logo macros

These are more of a by-product, but they are defined, so you could use them:

• \HsHlogoPath the path to an image, that is used as the logo. Given a default value by the class.
• \HsHlogoPage the page of the previous file, which is used. This is changed with the f1-f5 options.
• \includeHsHlogohere[width] this macro produces the logo using the previous macros. The width can optionally be provided.

Common additions and expansions (Snippets)

Sadly most Profs have widely different expectations when it comes to styling of written works. So you might find yourself having to change some settings. For some cases this has already been done and, to help others, uploaded in the snippets section of the project. Most of them are only visible when you are logged in!!
Also, if you create your own set of additions that are useful for other, feel free to contact me and I will give you access right, so you can upload it there.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the config.tex?

These file is an easy way to configure your project in a single central location, so it can be used over multiple documents in the same project as well as allowing easy reuse of configs for other projects.

The provided classes automatically check for this file and use it, if it is present. But they are completely optional, so you can just ditch them if you want to. Keep in mind that the config.tex will be included right before the \begin{document}, so it overrides all settings you may have put in your preamble.

The config.tex is intended for configurations. For example new- or redefinitions of commands should be put here. Also, packages-specific configs are loaded here. The \@ifpackageloaded{pakagename}{true}{false} macro allows to check for the existence of a package, so that you can reuse config files, even if you don't use all the same packages.

Adding ./src to path

You need to do this if you get errors like this:

! LaTeX Error: File `HsH-report.cls' not found.

Usually the latexmkrc files handles setting this up, but if you have problem or just want more controll, here are more details.

Using an .aux directory

It is very useful to define subdirectory for all the files produced during a latex run. This is also set up via the latexmkrc file.

LaTeX errors

You have requested document class `src/HsH-report', but the document class provides `HsH-report'.

This happens when you tried to use something like \documentclass{src/HsH-report}, which was a good idea, but doesn't quite work. You need to properly add the src directory to the path searched by LaTeX (as explained here). You can than simply use \documentclass{HsH-report}.

BibTeX errors

Sorry, but BibTeX did not succeed

You are probably using bibtex as your backend, but biber the standard configuration. You can change it, see here for most editors and here for VS Code or use \usepackage[backend=bibtex]{biblatex} in your preamble to keep using BibTeX.

Italic vs. upright Index? (changing subscript)

The classes by default set all sub scripts upright ("steil" in German), because this is required in Germany in most cases.
You can deactivate this permanently with \normalsubscripts and reactivate it with \upsubscripts.
If you want to change it for a single use, you can use the original Tex Macro \sb{} instead of the _ to get the original behaviour.
DO NOT use _\math..{}! This would be a nested font change and lead to unexpected results. \sb{\math..{}} is possible.