1. Current Students
  2. Thesis and Dissertation
  3. ETD Preparation

ETD Preparation

It is the student’s fundamental responsibility to –
  • Prepare and submit an ETD that meets the Graduate School’s format requirements
  • Test that the printed pdf version will be clear and legible, including any figures or images
  • Properly embed fonts
  • Ensure that the ETD meets ADA compliance standards and is accessible (e.g., usable by screen readers and other assistive technologies)
  • Ensure that you have secured the proper copyright permissions for using third-party work or your own previously-published work in your dissertation or thesis. 

Some requirements for all ETD's

  • After creating your ProQuest account, you should enter the title of your dissertation or thesis in title caps (as opposed to the all caps title required on the title page). For help with capitalization, try capitalizemytitle.com.  
  • Compression or password protection must not be used.
  • Fonts: All fonts used should be embedded in the document. If they are not, your work may not display properly when accessed and the text may not be fully searchable.
  • Navigational Aids. To assist the reader in readily navigating your ETD document, we recommend that you build sufficient internal navigational aids into your work. This can be done by adding internal links to the first page of each chapter and to other major parts listed in the Table of Contents, perhaps to each figure and table from the List of Figures/Tables, etc. Use of Adobe Acrobat's "Bookmarks" feature is a particularly easy way to include navigational links. Acrobat can automatically generate Bookmarks, which will appear in a window on the left side of the screen, from the Table of Contents generated from several modern word processors, including Microsoft Word. The creator of a pdf document can create additional bookmarks in an existing pdf document to another pdf document or to a Web page. 
  • Only selected multimedia file formats are automatically approved for inclusion (see list of approved file formats below).
  • Printed Documents to Include: All doctoral and master ETDs must be accompanied by paper copies of any reprint permission letters and any required third-party software licenses. Dissertations and theses must also be accompanied by paper copies of the signed Title/Signature Page and the ETD Signature Form.
  • Naming Convention: The main file name should conform to the following naming convention: last name-first initial of firstname-year-degree.pdf (e.g. doe-j-2004-phd.pdf). Use English letters, Arabic numbers, and dashes (-) only; no extra punctuation or diacritical marks or blank spaces. Associated files (for example, video or sound) should follow this same convention with the addition of an indicator of the type of file (video example = doe-j-2004-phd-video1.mov; sound example = doe-j-2004-phd-sound1.wav).
  • Need help? Visit ProQuest's Frequently Asked Questions page.

Microsoft and Adobe formatting help

How do I create a PDF file using Microsoft Word?
(There are many ways to create a PDF file; this is simply one method.)

  1. In the Word toolbar, go to “File” and choose “Print.”
  2. Select the “Adobe PDF” printer in your drop-down printer list. (You must have Adobe Acrobat installed for this to work.)
  3. Select a file name and location where you want to save your file, then click the save button.

For a Table of Contents manually created in Microsoft Word, how do I align the page numbers and connecting periods to end in a straight line?
Note: Each student’s Table of Contents will be structured differently depending on the particular needs of the student and the breakdown of the dissertation. This is just an example to demonstrate how to format the tabs.

  1. Delete any current manual connecting periods that are currently in the Table of Contents.
  2. Highlight the entire Table of Contents.
  3. With the Table of Contents highlighted, right click and select “paragraph.”
  4. Select “Tabs” in the paragraph box.
  5. Set the correct “Tab Stop Position.”
    Set the Alignment to “Right.”
    Select the “2 …….” leader for the required connecting periods, click “Set,” and click “OK.”
  6. When you use your tab key it will now right-align your page numbers with the connecting periods. Remember that you may need to reset your tab for use in other parts of your document.

How do I change a single page to landscape orientation in Microsoft Word?
As required by ProQuest, when a table or figure is too wide to fit on a portrait-oriented page, you will need to change the page orientation to landscape mode. However, doing this in the middle of the document to accommodate a specific table or figure requires a few extra steps:

  1. Select the entire table or figure and all of the associated text that you want to appear on the landscape page.
  2. In the “Layout” tab’s first section, “Page Setup,” click on the options arrow in the bottom right hand corner. This will open the “Page Setup” pop-up screen.
  3. Under the “Orientation” section of this pop-up, select “Landscape.” In the “Apply to:” drop-down option, choose “Selected text.”
  4. Click OK.

The above steps should properly orient the page with your selected text on the page. Next, the page numbers must be adjusted so that they are in the same position as the rest of the document’s page numbers.

  1. Adding a page number. If this is the first landscape page you are creating in this document, it may not have a page number. If so, select your page header, navigate to the “Design” tab, and insert a page number in the proper location by using the “Page Number” drop down menu.
  2. Page number location. Make sure that the page number on this landscape page is in exactly the same location as your previous page. If your page number is at the top of the page, your “Header from Top” setting should be the same as on your portrait-oriented pages.
  3. Consecutive page numbers. Creating a landscape page may disrupt the page numbers’ consecutive count. After inserting a page number on the landscape-oriented page, open this page’s header settings once more. From the same “Page Number’ drop-down menu, click “Format Page Numbers…” and make sure “Continue from previous section” is selected. You may also have to do this for the first portrait-oriented page that appears after this new landscape page.

Once the page is in proper sequence, make sure that the content does not violate the margin requirements (1.5 inches on the left side, 1-inch on the remaining three sides). Also, make sure that the caption is consistent with the appearance of the rest of the captions in your document.

How do I combine multiple PDF files in Adobe Acrobat?
(There are many ways to combine PDF files; this is simply one method.)

  1. Open one of your PDF files in Adobe Acrobat. (This will not work with Adobe Reader.)
  2. In the Adobe Acrobat toolbar, go to “Document” and choose “Insert Pages.”
  3. Select the file you want to insert and decide where you want to insert it.
  4. Repeat to insert as many files as needed.
  5. Once you have inserted all files, make sure to do a “save as” and name your file according to ProQuest’s convention: last name-first initial of firstname-year-degree.pdf (e.g. doe-j-2004-phd.pdf). Use English letters, Arabic numbers, and dashes (-) only, no extra punctuation or diacritical marks or blank spaces.