The template produces an academic book with LaTeX. The book adheres to typographical best practices and has a minimalist design. The template is particularly well suited for research monographs and textbooks. It is designed so books are comfortable to read and easy to scan, both in print and on screen.

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Main features

  • The font for text, roman math, and numbers is Source Serif Pro.
  • The font for Greek and calligraphic math is Euler.
  • The font for blackboard bold is Fourier.
  • The font for mathematical symbols is MnSymbol.
  • The font for monospaced text is Source Code Pro.
  • No colors are used in the text (only black) to reduce distraction and so the book prints well.
  • Margins, spacing, and font size are set for comfortable reading.
  • Headings and captions are designed so the book is easy to scan.
  • Formatting is specified for parts, chapters, sections, subsections, and run‑in paragraphs.
  • Formatting is specified for theorems, propositions, lemmas, definitions, assumptions, corollaries, remarks, and proofs.
  • Formatting is specified for figures and tables.
  • Formatting is specified for appendices, bibliography, and index.
  • All labels are set to make cross-referencing easy.

Text font

The font determines the appearance and readability of the entire book, so choosing a good font is key. Following Butterick’s advice, the template uses Source Serif Pro for the text.

Source Serif Pro is a serif font—a typical choice for long-form writing such as books. Source Serif Pro is not part of typical LaTeX book templates (unlike Times New Roman or Palatino), so it has a new, fresh feel. And since Source Serif Pro was designed in the last decade, it also has a modern feel.

Moreover, the Source Pro family includes a nice monospaced font: Source Code Pro. The template uses Source Code Pro as monospaced font—giving the monospaced text and regular text a similar look. The monospaced font is used in particular to typeset URLs and code fragments.

Math fonts

LaTeX uses one font for text and other fonts for math. For consistency, the template continues to use Source Serif Pro for roman math. It also uses Source Serif Pro for all the digits in math and basic punctuation (such as ., ?, %, ;, and ,), so very basic mathematical expressions look the same in math and text. For example, the commands 3.5\% and $3.5\%$ produce the same results.

Greek letters

For the Greek letters in math, the template uses the Euler font. These Greek letters look good, have the same thickness and height as the text letters, and are distinctive. For consistency, neither uppercase nor lowercase Greek letters are italicized.

All the standard Greek letters are available. A few variants are available as well: \varepsilon, \varpi, \varphi, and \vartheta. The variants \varrho, \varsigma, and \varkappa are not available with the Euler font.

Calligraphic letters

The template uses the Euler font as well for calligraphic letters in math. These calligraphic letters fit well with the other fonts and are very readable. The calligraphic letters are produced with the \mathcal{} command.

Blackboard-bold letters

The template uses the Fourier font as blackboard-bold font. It is cleaner than the default blackboard-bold font as it does not have serif. And it is slightly thicker than the default font so it matches the thickness of the Source Serif Pro and Euler letters. The blackboard-bold letters are produced with the \mathbb{} command.

Bold characters

In the template, it is possible to bold any mathematical character, except blackboard-bold letters. This can be done using the \bm{} command in math.

Mathematical symbols

Finally, the template uses the MnSymbol font for the symbols used in math mode. The default Computer Modern symbols are too light and thin in comparison to the Source Serif Pro and Euler letters, and as a result do not mix well with them. The advantage of the MnSymbol font is that its symbols are thicker, so they mix better with the Source Serif Pro and Euler letters. The symbols are also less curly, which gives them a more modern feel.

Font size

The font size used throughout the book is 11pt, as recommended by Butterick. It is easily readable but not too big. This size works well for continuous reading over many pages, which is important in a book.

Line spacing

The line spacing is 150% of the point size. This is in line with Butterick’s advice. Such spacing avoids that the text is too cramped or too spread out, and makes readings comfortable over long stretches of text.

Text margins

The left and right margins are 1.3 inch. With such margins, there are always 85–90 characters per line, just as Butterick recommends. Longer lines are harder to read. The top margin is 1 inch, which is standard. The bottom margin is slightly larger, at 1.2 inch, so the text appears centered in the page.

Color scheme

As Butterick says, colors, especially bright ones, are distracting. Furthermore, many colors are hard to read once they are printed in black and white. To avoid these issues, the template only uses the color black for text. In particular hyperlinks—to parts, chapters, sections, references, equations, figures, tables, and so on—are not colored. The typical, bright boxes surrounding hyperlinks in LaTeX should be avoided at all cost as they are distracting without adding any information. At this point everyone knows that LaTeX documents include such hyperlinks.

Title page

The template’s title page contains the required information for a research monograph: title, subtitle, authors, and date. It is otherwise minimalist.

The title is bold, centered, and with a large font size (30pt). The subtitle (if any) appears below the title, bold and centered, with a slightly smaller font size (20pt). Authors and date are centered and with the same font size as the subtitle (20pt). Everything is laid out with ample vertical white space so the title page feels clean.

All these elements are controlled from the preamble of book.tex:

\title{Book Title}
\subtitle{Book Subtitle}
\author{Book Author}
\date{Month Year}

Book structure

The template is based on LaTeX’s standard book class and organizes content into front matter, main matter, appendices, and back matter.

Front matter

  • Introductory command: \frontmatter
  • Page numbers: lowercase Roman (i, ii, iii, and so on)
  • Chapter numbers: typically unnumbered
  • Typical content: title page, copyright, dedication, foreword, preface, table of contents, list of figures and tables

Main matter

  • Introductory command: \mainmatter
  • Page numbers: Arabic, and the counter is reset so the body starts at page 1
  • Chapters: numbered (chapter 1, chapter 2, and so on)
  • Typical content: the actual book—the core chapters.

Appendix

  • Introductory command: \appendix
  • Page numbers: Usually continues Arabic numbering from the main text
  • Chapters: lettered (appendix A, appendix B, and so on)
  • Typical content: appendix chapters

Back matter

  • Introductory command: \backmatter
  • Page numbers: Usually continues Arabic numbering from the main text and appendix
  • Chapters: unnumbered again (like front matter)
  • Typical content: bibliography, acknowledgments, index, sometimes list of abbreviations

Book skeleton

The skeleton of a typical book looks like this:

\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
\maketitle
\end{titlepage}
\frontmatter
\tableofcontents
\chapter{Preface}
\input{preface}
\mainmatter
\part{Part Title 1}
\chapter{Chapter Title 1}
\input{chapter1}
\chapter{Chapter Title 2}
\input{chapter2}
\part{Part Title 2}
\chapter{Chapter Title 3}
\input{chapter3}
\appendix
\part{Appendix}
\chapter{Appendix Title A}
\input{appendixA}
\chapter{Appendix Title B}
\input{appendixB}
\backmatter
\bibliography{book.bib}
\chapter{Acknowledgments}
\input{acknowledgements}
\printindex
\end{document}

Table of contents

The table of contents is produced with the standard \tableofcontents command. Its appearance is customized so that:

  • Parts are in bold.
  • Chapter titles use small caps.
  • Section titles use regular font.
  • Dots and spacing are set for clarity.
  • Bibliography and index are automatically listed.

The depth of the table of contents is set so that chapters and sections appear; subsections are omitted to keep the table of contents compact and easy to scan.

Headings

The template’s headings follow Butterick’s advice:

  • Part headings use 25pt bold type and are centered on an otherwise mostly empty page. The heading is preceded by the part label, part X., which is set in small caps.
  • Chapter headings use 20pt bold type. The heading is preceded by the chapter label, chapter X., which is set in small caps.
  • Section headings use 12pt bold type. The heading is simply preceded by the section number, X.Y..
  • Subsection headings use 11pt bold type. The heading is simply preceded by the subsection number, X.Y.Z..
  • Paragraph headings are run‑in, in italic, so they are noticeable but not too prominent.

These headings are produced with the usual commands: \part{}, \chapter{}, \section{}, \subsection{}, and \paragraph{}. The template does not tailor formatting for subsubsections and smaller headings. Such small headings signal that the book’s organization is quite messy: I think that they should be avoided.

All counters—for equations, figures, tables, theorems, and so on—automatically pick up the chapter number. For instance, in chapter 2: equation (2.1), figure 2.2, table 2.3, or theorem 2.1. All counters restart in each chapter. Footnote numbers also restart in each chapter.

Citations

The template uses author-year citation style through the natbib package. All natbib citation commands are usable in the template:

  • Textual citation: \citet{NameYear} gives Name (Year)
  • Textual citation with details: \citet[p.~120]{NameYear} gives Name (Year, p. 120)
  • Parenthetical citation: \citep{NameYear} gives (Name Year)
  • Parenthetical citation with details: \citep[chapter 4]{NameYear} gives (Name Year, chapter 4)
  • Author citation: \citeauthor{NameYear} gives Name
  • Year citation: \citeyear{NameYear} gives Year

Theorems and other results

As is standard, the text of theorems is in italic—providing subtle emphasis. The theorem label is in small caps—again providing subtle emphasis. For consistency, all other types of results—propositions, lemmas, assumptions, definitions, and so on—are formatted just like theorems. Each type of results gets its own counter that resets every chapter and every appendix. So in Chapter 3 you can have Theorem 3.1, Proposition 3.1, Lemma 3.1, Lemma 3.2, Lemma 3.3 and so on in parallel.

The proof label is also in small—providing subtle emphasis. The proof text uses the normal text font.

Proofs and results are separated from surrounding text with a slight vertical space.

The template comes with the following predefined environments:

  • Theorems: \begin{theorem} ... \end{theorem}
  • Propositions: \begin{proposition} ... \end{proposition}
  • Lemmas: \begin{lemma} ... \end{lemma}
  • Corollaries: \begin{corollary} ... \end{corollary}
  • Definitions: \begin{definition} ... \end{definition}
  • Assumptions: \begin{assumption} ... \end{assumption}
  • Remarks: \begin{remark} ... \end{remark}
  • Results: \begin{result} ... \end{result}
  • Proofs: \begin{proof} ... \end{proof}

Figures

The template is configured so that figures typically appear at the top of the page where they are first mentioned. The template uses black-and-white figures for consistency with the text and for print. Figure panels are centered by default. The figure label is in small caps—just like the chapter and result labels. The figure caption is placed below the figure.

The figure environment is set up so it is easy to reference a figure (figure 1.1) or directly a panel in a figure (figure 1.1A). With the code below, a specific panel in a figure can be referenced with figure \ref{panel1}, which produces figure 1.1A, and the entire figure can be referenced with figure \ref{figure2}, which produces figure 1.1.

With the command \note{Text}, it is easy to enter a note below the figure caption with details about the figure and sources. The note’s font size is 9pt, just like footnotes. An optional label can also be added before the note text, using \note[Note]{Text} or \note{[Source]Text}.

The code for a figure with one large panel is the following:

\begin{figure}[t]
\includegraphics[scale=0.3,page=1]{figures.pdf}
\caption{Figure caption}
\note{Note for figure.}
\label{f:figure1}\end{figure}

The code for a figure with two panels is the following:

\begin{figure}[t]
\subcaptionbox{Panel caption\label{f:panel1}}{\includegraphics[scale=0.2,page=1]{figures.pdf}}\hfill
\subcaptionbox{Panel caption\label{f:panel2}}{\includegraphics[scale=0.2,page=2]{figures.pdf}}
\caption{Figure caption}
\note[Source]{Source for the figure.}
\label{f:figure2}\end{figure}

Tables

Tables are sized and spaced for a book page. They should be placed at the top of the page where they are first mentioned—not in the middle of the page. Tables are centered by default. The table label is in small caps—just like the figure label. The table caption is placed above the table, as usual. Top and bottom table lines are thicker to clearly demarcate the table. The text in the table has a font size of 9pt, just like footnotes, as is typical. The text is spaced vertically to be easily readable.

The command \note{Text} can also be used to enter a note below the table, to provide details about the table and sources.

The code for a basic table is the following:

\begin{table}[t]
\caption{Table caption}
\begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}[]{p{3.3cm}@{\extracolsep\fill}cccc}
\toprule
& \multicolumn{2}{c}{Columns 2–3} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{Columns 4–5}\\
\cmidrule{2-3}\cmidrule{4-5}
& Column 1 &  Column 2 &  Column 3  &  Column 4 \\
\midrule
Line 1: & A & B & C  & D \\
Line 2: & E &  F & G  & H   \\
Line 3: & K & V & P  & K  \\
Line 4: & J & M & N  & K  \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular*}
\note{Note for table.}
\label{t:table1}\end{table}

Lists

Itemized and numbered lists are customized to fit well with the surrounding text. The text after the items is aligned with indented text (the start of a paragraph). All items (bullet points and numbers) are grey so as not to be too prominent. Spacing is slightly more than line spacing so the different items are clearly visible.

Appendices

The template makes it easy to add appendices at the end of the book. The appendices start with the command \appendix. The formatting of the appendices strictly follows that of the main text, but chapter headings are relabeled as Appendix A., Appendix B., and so on.

As usual, all counters—for equations, figures, tables, theorems, and so on—automatically pick up appendix letters: for instance, equation (A.1), figure A.2, table A.3, or theorem A.1. All counters restart in each appendix.

Bibliography

The bibliography has a font size of 10pt, with the same spacing as the text. Each individual reference uses a hanging indent for emphasis. The bibliography entry automatically appears in the table of content.

The references are formatted according to the guidelines from the Chicago Manual of Style, which are followed by many scientific publishers.

  • An article published in a journal appears as follows: Zagorsky, Jay L. 1998. “Job Vacancies in the United States: 1923 to 1994.” Review of Economics and Statistics 80 (2): 338–345. https://doi.org/10.1162/003465398557438.
  • A working paper appears as follows: Leamer, Edward E. 2008. “What’s a Recession, Anyway?” NBER Working Paper 14221. https://doi.org/10.3386/w14221.
  • A book appears as follows: Murphy, Kevin P. 2022. Probabilistic Machine Learning: An Introduction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • An article published as part of a collection appears as follows: Stock, James H. and Mark W. Watson. 1993. “A Procedure for Predicting Recessions with Leading Indicators: Econometric Issues and Recent Experience.” In Business Cycles, Indicators and Forecasting, edited by James H. Stock and Mark W. Watson, chap. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • A data entry appears as follows: BLS. 2024. “Job Openings: Total Nonfarm.” FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSJOL.
  • A website entry appears as follows: BLS. 2020. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey: Overview.” https://perma.cc/RN3P-S4SL.

Index

The template includes an index built with the imakeidx package. Index entries are created with the \index{entry} command. In the index, each entry is set in lowercase using the text font.

The index is printed with \printindex in the back matter, at the end of the book. The index entry appears automatically in the table of contents.

The index can be disabled by commenting out the lines that load imakeidx and call \makeindex in book.sty, and by removing \printindex from book.tex.