This class is based on the work of Ken Arroyo Ohori for his doctoral thesis. The main ideas behind the layout can be found in this blog post. The Tufte-LaTeX class has also been a source of ideas about the layout.
My gratitude goes also to Vel, for his patience and his invaluable suggestions about the design, and to all the people who have contributed either on GitHub or by sending e-mails.
The salient features of the class are as follows.
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Wide margin to house captions, small figures or tables, and textual notes.
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Mini table of contents in the margin at the start of each chapter.
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Easily-customisable chapter headings.
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Flexible citations with references both in the margin and in the bibliography at the end.
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Powered by KOMA-Script.
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Many commands have been redefined to ease the life of the user.
A better description can be found at LaTeX Templates. If you think that a PDF is worth a thousand words, have a look at this.
In the examples directory you can find some sample documents, but here are some more books or reports created with the kaobook class. If you want to add a link to your work, please send me an email or open a pull request!
If you are not familiar with LaTeX, I recommend starting with this tutorial, which will give you a basic understanding of the language. As you will read in the tutorial, all LaTeX documents, including books, start by defining the so-called class of the document, for example 'article', or 'book'. Thus, the first line of a LaTeX document will be something like
\documentclass{book}
Each class provides a unique style and set of commands that can be used
throughout the document. kaobook is just another class. The following
paragraphs will outline how to use it.
Browse to the latextemplates.com page for
kaobook and start
editing the main.tex file to fill it with your own contents.
Download the latest release from GitHub. At the root of the repository,
create a new .tex file and make sure that the first line reads
\documentclass{kaobook} (for books) or \documentclass{kaohandt} (for
reports). Then, fill the file with your LaTeX contents.
Important: when we say \documentclass{kaobook}, LaTeX needs to know
where the kaobook file is. This means that the .tex file should be
in the same folder as the kaobook.cls file, i.e. at the root of the
repository. (There are exceptions to this rule. For instance, the
kaobook files can be placed in a folder that is automatically searched
by LaTeX. This, way, the .tex file with your contents can be placed
anywhere; check out the instructions directory for
hints.)
If you don't want to start from scratch, go to the examples directory,
and find a template that you like; then, copy the corresponding
main.tex at the root of the repository, and start editing it, filling
it with your contents.
Check out the instructions directory for additional guidance. There, you can read about setting up your own sharelatex server or integrating kaobook with your local LaTeX installation.
The class is documented and exemplified in the example_and_documentation.pdf file. The easiest way to start using the class is to open one of the examples and start editing them.
In the examples directory of this repository you can find several
documents exemplifying the kaobook class. For the sake of simplicity
I shall list the commands to compile only the documentation, but the
compilation of the other examples would proceed in the same way. Also,
you can replace pdflatex with your favorite engine, like e.g. xelatex.
cd into the root of the repository, and run
pdflatex -output-directory examples/documentation main.tex
biber -output-directory examples/documentation main
pdflatex -output-directory examples/documentation main.tex
pdflatex -output-directory examples/documentation main.tex
pdflatex -output-directory examples/documentation main.tex
To compile the glossary and nomenclature as well, cd into the
examples/documentation directory and run
makeindex main.nlo -s nomencl.ist -o main.nls
makeglossaries main
Then, cd back into the root of the repository and re-run pdflatex.
NOTE: sometimes LaTeX needs more than one run to get the correct position of each element; this is true in particular for the positioning of floating elements like figures, tables, and margin notes. Occasionally, LaTeX can need up to four re-runs, so If the alignment of margin elements looks odd, or if they bleed into ther main text, try running pdflatex one more time.
To update kaobook you should download the whole repository (or one of the releases) again, and replace all of your old files with the newer ones, except for the main.tex and the files that you have created, like the chapters of the book. The crucial files that pertain to kaobook and that you should always update are:
kaobook.cls;kaohandt.cls;kao.sty;kaobiblio.sty(optional);kaorefs.sty(optional);kaotheorems.sty(optional);
These files should be in the same folder as your main.tex. Even if a
file has not been modified, I would still suggest to replace everything
because it is easier.
In practice, I would do as follows. I would have a directory, called for
example 'my_book', with all the files necessary for the book:
kaobook.cls, kaohand.cls, the *.sty files, and the main.tex. I
like to have a separate file for each chapter, so I would also have a
directory called chapters, with all the .tex files with the actual
chapters. Then, when I want to update kaobook, I would download the
GitHub repository (or one of the releases) into a directory called
'kaobook', and finally copy the kaobook.cls, kaohandt.cls, and the
whole styles directory from 'kaobook' to 'my_book'. Once the update
is completed, the whole 'my_book' directory can be uploaded on Overleaf
or on a personal ShareLaTeX server.
Alternatively, advanced users can download the repository in their local texmf tree; see the instructions directory for hints.
There are two main class files: kaobook.cls, used for books, and
kaohandt.cls, used for reports or handouts; both heavily rely on
kao.sty, which contains the bulk of the definitions that are common to
both classes. In the future there may be another class for theses.
Some examples and templates are listed in the examples directory. The
book that documents the class is an example itself, and the pdf has been
copied to the root of the repository so that it will be found more
easily.
The *.sty files contain additional packages that are used by the
class, but in principle they are independent of it (even though in
practice it is still not so).
If you want to do something more peculiar, the instructions directory
may contain what you need.
Do you like the design, but you found a bug? Is there something you would have done differently? Any contribution is welcome! Moreover, even if you'd rather not tamper with the code it is not forbidden to send me the documents you compiled using the kaobook class.
Since the content of this repository is published at LaTeX Templates, if you wish to contribute by changing the code you must follow the style guidelines of the site: extensive commenting and clear separation of the code into nicely formatted blocks.
I am always happy to help as much as I can, and I am glad if someone
uses the kaobook class for their works, so there is no real need to do
anything: the kaobook can be used just like any other LaTeX package (no
need to add copyright statements). However, if you want to acknowledge
kaobook, adding somewhere a sentence like 'This book was typeset with the
kaobook class' would suffice.
Coffee keeps me awake and helps me writing a better LaTeX template. As another way to contribute, you can buy me a coffee through PayPal: https://paypal.me/marofede.
This repository contains two independent works. On the one hand, the
kaobook class, consisting of kaobook.cls, kaohandt.cls, and
kao.def files plus all of the files listed in the styles directory;
on the other hand, the templates and the examples in the examples
directory.
The first work is licensed under the LaTeX Project Public
License, so if you want to modify
and/or distribute the *.cls and *.sty files pertaining to this work
you have to complain with the terms of the license. However, if you just
want to use the class to compile your documents you need not worry about
the license.
The second work is released into the public domain with a Creative Commons Zero License.
Read MANIFEST.md for the details.