Empty pages, large spaces after abstracts in chapters, month and year

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1.
2.
3.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
1.Shouldn't be blank pages. Blank pages to ensure chapters start on odd pages. 
Solution was to include "openany" param.

2. I was previously using the \begin{abstract} command for the abstracts on 
each chapter. I think the template overrides some of the functionality of the 
command, inserting a newpage command which causes the abstract to float on the 
chapter heading page. My solution was to change it to just be an unnumbered 
section \section*{Abstract}.

3. Shouldn't be graduation month and year, should be defense month and year.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
1.4; Mac OS 10.8.3

Please provide any additional information below.

Here is the email correspondence with the CS secretary that brought about the 
concerns:

Hi Andrew,

See below.
On Jun 5, 2013, at 10:43 AM, Andrew McNabb <amcnabb@cs.byu.edu> wrote:

It looks like there might be two separate issues that might be relevant
to other people:

1. Paul, when you had blank pages, were you using the "electronic"
option or the "hardcopy" option?  Also, did you specify "twoside"?  If
you specify "electronic" and not "twoside", then there shouldn't be
blank pages, so this information will help me know whether or not
there's a bug.

These were my params (just used what came with the template). The "openany" 
param was the key to eliminating empty pages. It says in the documentation "%   
openany -- don't use this, it's ugly". 

\documentclass[ms,electronic,twosidetoc,letterpaper,lof,lot,chaptercenter,partto
p,openany]{byumsphd}

2. In the copy that Jen forwarded me, I don't see the extra space in
front of the Abstract.  It would be helpful to have a minimum working
example that reproduces this problem, as well as any information about
how you fixed it (I'm not exactly a TeX genius, as few people are).

I was previously using the \begin{abstract} command for the abstracts on each 
chapter. I think the template overrides some of the functionality of the 
command, inserting a newpage command. My solution was to change it to just be 
an unnumbered section \section*{Abstract}.

For either of these two issues, if you think that there's a bug, please
make a report at the issue tracker for the latex-byu-thesis project:

https://code.google.com/p/latex-byu-thesis/issues/list

This would be much more helpful than sending information by email
because there have been a number of different people helping maintain
the project.

Thanks.

On Wed, Jun 05, 2013 at 10:21:42AM -0600, Jen Bonnett wrote:
Andrew,

Are you still helping to maintain our latex template?  I thought Paul was
right and maybe I ought to pass this information along.  If it isn't still
you doing the template, can you let me know who is doing that?

Thanks for everything Andrew!

Jen

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Paul Bodily <norkish@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:49 AM
Subject: Re: Thesis formatting
To: Jen Bonnett <jen@cs.byu.edu>
Cc: Quinn Snell <qsnell@gmail.com>

Thanks Jen!

I've made the changes you suggested. To whomever is maintaining your latex
template, you may also wish to let them know these same things so that they
can update the template accordingly.

Thanks,
Paul

On Jun 5, 2013, at 9:10 AM, Jen Bonnett <jen@cs.byu.edu> wrote:

Hi Paul,

Your thesis looks great.  There are only a few small changes you will want
to make.

The date on the title page should be June (it is now the month that the
college signs off on your ETD after your defense, rather than the month you
are graduating).

No blank pages are allowed in the ETD, but you can include them in the
bound copy of your thesis if you would like.

Also, on pages 13 and 25, there is a rather large space before the abstract
begins.  I am not sure if the college will ask you to fix that or not, it
is up to you whether or not you make revisions to that.

Please let me know if you have any questions at all.

Congrats Paul!!

Jen
<bodily_paul_ms_thesis.pdf>

-- 
Jennifer Bonnett
Graduate Program Assistant
Computer Science Department
Brigham Young University
801.422.1472

--
Andrew McNabb
http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/
PGP Fingerprint: 8A17 B57C 6879 1863 DE55  8012 AB4D 6098 8826 6868

Original issue reported on code.google.com by Nork...@gmail.com on 5 Jun 2013 at 7:32

[GoogleCodeExporter]

So this is actually three different issues. Would you mind submitting a 
different issue for each one? This would be a lot easier to track. Thanks for 
all of your help.

Original comment by amcna...@gmail.com on 5 Jun 2013 at 10:16

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Okay. I've fixed the first and third issues.

The second issue isn't really fixable--the \begin{abstract} refers to the 
dissertation abstract, and it doesn't make sense to put one of these within a 
chapter.

Original comment by amcna...@gmail.com on 5 Jun 2013 at 11:16

• Changed state: Fixed