Writing a dissertation takes time, and none of it should be wasted screwing around with document design. In the spirit of making a dissertation easy to write, I created this minimalist example dissertation template based on my own document. The specifics are formatted for OHSU's dissertation design requirements, but they are easily modified to suite your institution's draconian formatting requirements.
For those not familiar with LateX or git, first clone this repository onto your computer like so:
git clone https://github.com/schaugf/OHSU_dissertation_templateDownload and install TexMaker. From inside TexMaker, open main.tex. This is the file you'll be compiling, and takes care of all the front matter of the document. Individual chapters are stored in /chapters. Edit those in TexMaker as well, but you only need to comopile main.tex. Follow the instructions in the rest of the document for tips and tricks, and do reach out with any questions.
Happy type-setting!