Ambiguous definition of 'N line spacing' in official thesis manual

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The official thesis manual (july 2007) ambiguously defines certain vertical
spacing (see D3-D8 in wiki UtmThesisFormatRequirements [1]) as:
  4 line spacing OR 
  2 line spacing

However, it does not stated whether a 'line spacing' means single or 1.5 
or double line spacing.

Currently, utmthesis v2.1 set '4 line spacing' as 4 *single* line spacing.
However, recently a postgraduate officer in FSKSM UTM mentioned that they
interpret '4 line spacing' as 4 *1.5* line spacing.

To add more confusion, the officer told us that they found checking this 
against student's thesis was difficult. So they decided to treat '4 line
spacing' as roughly 3.5-4cm (which actually equivalent to 4 *double* line
spacing).

[1] http://code.google.com/p/utmthesis/wiki/UtmThesisFormatRequirements

Original issue reported on code.google.com by teohuiming on 17 Jan 2009 at 1:40

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I guess the final resolution, if anytime soon, will need to come from UTM 
official
authority. 

So mean while, a workaround will be added for user to choose between different
interpretation of blank line spacing.

To use 'single' blank line spacing (the default setting):
  \documentclass{utmthesis} OR
  \documentclass[singleblank]{utmthesis}

'1.5' blank line spacing:
  \documentclass[onehalfblank]{utmthesis}

'double' blank line spacing:
  \documentclass[doubleblank]{utmthesis}

The code is now available in an experimental branch:
 http://utmthesis.googlecode.com/svn/branches/TRY-HMT-blankspacing/utmthesis.cls

Feel free to download and test it. If no further problem, I will try to merge 
it into
main trunk and package it as a new update release (v2.2) probably by next 
weekend.

Original comment by teohuiming on 17 Jan 2009 at 1:58

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Simon emailed Prof Hishamuddin Jamaluddin, the person who (we believe) in 
charge of
the UTM thesis formatting, regarding this issue. And he has kindly replied the 
email:

> From: Hishamuddin Jamaluddin, Phd <hishamj@xxxx>
> Subject: Re: Question about UTM Thesis Formatting
> To: "Simon Ng" <simon5u@xxxx>
> Date: Friday, January 16, 2009, 5:13 PM
>
> 1.5 spacing * 4

So, I think we will continue provide the 3 class options (singleblank, 
onehalfblank,
doubleblank), but the default setting will change to 'onehalfblank'.

OTW, \documentclass{utmthesis} is equivalent to 
\documentclass[onehalfblank]{utmthesis}.

Original comment by teohuiming on 18 Jan 2009 at 3:07

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Fixed.

Original comment by zero.vis...@gmail.com on 13 Feb 2011 at 12:12

• Changed state: Fixed