Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

As help requests increased recently, I decided to put the most frequently asked questions here together with some answers. Please do not send me emails with questions which are answered here!

My LaTeX system won't find the fonts! What can I do?

Make sure you install the complete fonts for mathpazo and bera (including beramono.sty). Typical LaTeX distributions such as MiKTeX come with these fonts when installed completely.

Why is the outer border so thick?

A good text width depends on the font used (its size etc.) and is calculated via certain formulas and tables which can be found, e.g., in Robert Bringhurst's book "The Elements of Typographic Style". The classicthesis style uses such a good text width for 10pt or 11pt Palatino. As the used paper is the awkward DIN A4, this results in a pretty thick outer margin. On the other hand, this margin can be used for notes, comments etc. Good options to address the broad margin issue could be a bigger font size or using a better fitting (custom-made) paper size.

Why is the outer border thicker than the inner border? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

This has typographical reasons which are probably explained in any good book on typography. I won't bore you to death with the details, just open any good (text)book in your room and see for yourself. See? It's the way margins look like.

I use case-sensitive math in my headers and I get strange results! What's going on?

Upper- and lowercase text and math stuff will not have the case you expect it to have. The case is changed automatically to the respective setting of the head/ToC entry. Since version 2.0 of classicthesis this is fixed, providing you with the "pdfspacing" option. Uses pdftex' internal letter spacing capability via the microtype package. MinionPro users have an additional option ("minionprospacing") to activate "textssc"-spacing.