Research Data – Latest News & Worth Knowing

Source: RDM Team RWTH Aachen University

There’s good news for everyone who works with LaTeX: official RWTH LaTeX templates are now available! They make it easier and more convenient for LaTeX users to create letters, posters, and presentations and other documents with the uniform corporate design of RWTH Aachen University.

Marei Peischl (peiTeX) and Dr. Lukas C. Bossert, a member of the RDM team at RWTH Aachen University, developed the templates in close cooperation with the Marketing Department. They have been officially approved. The templates provide a solid foundation, save valuable formatting time, and ensure compliance with RWTH’s formal requirements.

How Does LaTeX Work?

It differs fundamentally from traditional word processing programs. Rather than seeing the final document immediately, you mainly work with text markup. The text is written in an editor. This can be any text editor, though there are also specialized LaTeX writing programs.

You use commands to tell LaTeX what something is (e.g., chapter, table, or figure), not what it looks like. During the compilation process, LaTeX “calculates” the document, automatically determining the optimal positions for text and images before generating a finished PDF.

Therefore, the principle is not “What you see is what you get,” but “What you see is what you mean.”

Although there is a slight delay between typing and seeing the final result, the result is particularly stable, consistent, and professional. The RWTH LaTeX templates were recently published on CTAN and are now included in TeXLive and MikTeX. To work with LaTeX locally, you need a LaTeX distribution, such as TeXLive or MikTeX.

All you need to do is install a distribution. Updates are managed and installed automatically on your computer without requiring additional licenses.

Uniform Design — Technically Clean Implementation

One major advantage of the RWTH LaTeX templates is that the RWTH corporate design is fully implemented in the background. Users no longer have to worry about layout issues.

• All color values of the RWTH corporate design (CD) are stored, including RWTH blue, green, and other color variants in various gradations and color models (RGB, YMCK).
• Letterheads and sender and address details are predefined. Any text entered is automatically placed in the correct position.
• Fonts, spacing, and page layout comply with the official design specifications.

In short, you write the content, and LaTeX takes care of displaying it correctly.

Logos, Images, and Formats

For licensing reasons, RWTH logos are not included automatically. This means that:

• The logo must be added manually to the project folder as an image file so that LaTeX can recognize it automatically.
• Almost all common image formats (except .tif) are supported.
• Official logos can be requested from the Marketing Department.

Practical Application

The RWTH LaTeX templates are suitable for numerous applications.

• Theses
• Third-party funding applications (e.g., for collaborative research centers)
• Reports, tables, and structured lists.
• Posters and presentations in the RWTH design

Contact the IT-Service Desk at any time if you are interested or need assistance.

Working with Overleaf: LaTeX in the Cloud

If you don’t want to or can’t install LaTeX locally, you can work via Overleaf, a cloud-based LaTeX service.

• Overleaf allows you to write, compile, and manage LaTeX documents directly in your browser.
• You can log in via single sign-on (SSO), such as through RWTH.
• Overleaf is available to RWTH students and staff depending on the license model.
• Projects can be created online and edited collaboratively.

Overleaf is currently provided as “software as a service” via servers at TU Darmstadt. Soon, RWTH templates will be available there, eliminating the need to import them into a LaTeX project. The goal is to integrate this service more closely with the RWTH infrastructure in the future.

One major advantage is that you won’t start from scratch, but rather from a pre-prepared template with much of the information already structured.

Digital Sovereignty and Resilience

For over 40 years, LaTeX has represented stability, openness, and future-proofing. As open-source software, LaTeX does not require any paid licenses, promoting digital sovereignty and representing a “resilient technology”:

• Independence from proprietary software, such as Microsoft Office
• A global standard for scientific and technical documentation
• Use in not only mathematics and the natural sciences, but also the humanities and social sciences

LaTeX is an extremely sustainable solution, especially for long-term, reproducible documentation.

New LaTeX Workshop Series Starting in February 2026

To coincide with the release of the templates, a new LaTeX workshop series will begin in February 2026. Both introductory and advanced courses will be offered:

• An Introduction to Using LaTeX for Academic Publishing
  February 25 to 26, 2026

• RWTH Corporate Design Template for LaTeX (Letter) March 4, 2026
• RWTH Corporate Design Template for LaTeX (Presentation)
• March 5, 2026
• RWTH Corporate Design Template for LaTeX (Scientific Poster)
  March 5, 2026
• Creating LaTeX Documents with CI/CD Pipelines
  March 12, 2026

Feedback and Further Information

Feel free to contact the RDM team at any time with questions about LaTeX, the workshop series, or general RDM topics.

We are thrilled to present this new service and hope you find great fulfillment and joy in your writing endeavors!

Responsible for the content of this article is Lina-Louise Kaulbach.