This is a LaTeX document class to make you life easier when writing work term reports for the University of Waterloo.
This class was originally written by Simon Law, and is available at his website.
I have made some improvements and updates to bring this class more in line with the current work report guidelines. If you notice any issues or inconsistencies with the guidelines, please let me know, or send a pull request!
If you do not know LaTeX, please learn! It is not too difficult to use, and is really quite helpful. You can read any of the example work reports, as well as: A not so short introduction to LaTeX2e: or LaTeX2e in 113 minutes.
You can also find more information on-line. There is an FAQ and a page listing documentation for beginners.
To generate the class files, simply run:
# make
This will generate uw-wkrpt.cls, which you can use to write your work report.
On a Windows system, to generate the cls file:
> latex uw-wkrpt.ins
Note that if you change any of the *.dtx files, the cls will need to be regenerated.
To use the class, simply set the document class of a .tex file to uw-wkrpt, and
ensure that there's a copy of the class file in the same directory.
Alternatively, you may use uw-wkrpt's installation system. If you are on a
Unix-like system, and have a complete TeX system, find where your texmf root is.
This should typically be /usr/share/texmf which implies that installing
is as easy as running:
# make DESTDIR=/usr/share install
On some systems, PDFTeX is set to output to A4 paper, even
though we have set the default to letterpaper. This is sad, and can be
worked around. If you are running Debian GNU/Linux, you should run
texconfig and change the PAPER option in the XDVI, DVIPS, DVIPDFM, and
PDFTEX settings. Otherwise, find the "pdftex.cfg" file which usually
lives in /etc/texmf/pdftex/pdftex.cfg. Make sure it has these two
lines:
page_width 8.5 true in
page_height 11 true in
You will want to comment out any other instances of page_width and
page_height by using the % character.
If you use Docker, lucaswoj has provided a Dockerfile to automate the LaTeX setup.
Note that this method is not officially supported or endorsed. It is mentioned only in the hope that some users find it useful.
There are several examples included:
- uw-wkrpt-cecs.tex
- uw-wkrpt-ece.tex
- uw-wkrpt-math.tex
- uw-wkrpt-se.tex
If you have a report.tex file, and would like to generate a PDF from it, simply
run pdflatex. Note that you may need to run pdflatex several times, to
ensure all the auxilliary files (eg table of contents) are created. You will
also have to run bibtex to generate the bibliography, and then run pdflatex
again, afterwards.
To simply this process, you may find Latexmk to be useful.
Latexmk will run pdflatex and bibtex as many times as is necessary for you,
so you only need to call it once. See Makefile.example.
- The README.md file is the one you are reading now.
- The NEWS file is a list of interesting things that have changed since the last release (before this class was under version control).
- The ChangeLog file is a record of the changes made to the software (before this class was under version control).
- LICENSE contains a copy of the GNU General Public License.
- Makefile is the makefile for generating the uw-wkrpt class and documentation.
- uw-wkrpt.ins is the docstrip installer.
- uw-wkrpt.dtx is the docstrip document that contains the entire uw-wkrpt package.
- uw-wkrpt-*.tex are example documents written using uw-wkrpt.cls. It illustrates the way to write a document, and tries to adhere as closely to the guidelines as possible.
- uw-wkrpt.bib is the bibliography or references list that is imported by the example reports.
- Makefile.example is an example makefile that demonstrates the use of Latexmk.
- don-hires.pdf is a picture of Donald E. Knuth, acquired from his website and used in workreport-sample.tex.
You may wish to load some other useful packages to make your life
simpler, and your work report nicer. After the \documentclass{uw-wkrpt}
line, just add \usepackage{foo}, where foo is the package name.
- acronym: for spelling out acronyms in full, the first time only.
- algpseudocode: for including pseudocode.
- framed: for adding frames (borders) around certain elements.
- listings: for including source code listings.
- longtable: for tabular environments that break pages.
- tabularx: for tabular environments that know how wide they are.
- ltxtable: for a merge of longtable and tabularx, which may not work.
- times, mathptm: for using the Times font in your text and math.
I am looking for a new maintainer for this project. In the meantime, I am more than happy to review and accept PRs.
This LaTeX class was originally created by Simon Law in 2002. In 2011, Casey Banner created a GitHub repo for this class and made some updates. All other uw-wkrpt repos on GitHub are forks of Casey's repo.
In 2012, I significantly updated the class to match the latest requirements for the software engineering program. I am reasonably confident that the class conforms to the SE work report guidelines of Fall 2012.
However, there is still much work to be done. The SE guidelines are at best two years outdated, and the other guidelines are eleven years outdated. A lot of LaTeX conventions and best practices have changed over the last decade. The class is in need of a major update (or even rewrite).
I no longer have the interest to do this, and am now looking for a new maintainer for this project. If you are interested, please let me know.
This class has helped many students with the formatting of their work reports, and I hope it will continue to do so.
-- Ming-Ho Yee, 2014-05-25
-- Simon Law [email protected] Wed, 30 Apr 2003 19:34:41 -0400
-- Casey Banner [email protected] Sat, 16 Apr 2011 14:28:31 -0400
-- Cory Snider [email protected] Fri, 16 Sep 2011 01:13:02 -0400
-- Ming-Ho Yee [email protected] Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:38:12 -0400