Theses, Books, Title pages ⇒ How do I add a preface section prior to the table of content

[templateuser]

Hi,

how can I add a Preface before the Contents in this style? Although the template is very beautiful I miss the possibility of adding some important pages before the actual matter of the book starts. It would be great if you could show a short example. Many thanks.

Lorenzo

[Vel]

Hi Lorenzo,

All you have to do is include a chapter before the table of contents section is start it in the same way as Chapter 1 but before where the table of contents appears in the document. For example:

Code: Select all

\chapterimage{chapter_head_2.pdf}
\chapter{Preface}
\section{Paragraphs of Text}\index{Paragraphs of Text}
\lipsum[1-7]
\cleardoublepage
\chapterimage{chapter_head_1.pdf}
\pagestyle{empty}
\tableofcontents
\cleardoublepage
\pagestyle{fancy}

Cheers,
Vel

[templateuser]

Hi Vel,

many thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I have tried your suggestion and it game me an error when executing pdflatex main:

Code: Select all

! LaTeX Error: Something’s wrong–perhaps a missing \item.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type H for immediate help.
…

l.149 \chapter{Introduction}

?
! Emergency stop.
…

l.149 \chapter{Introduction}

! ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!
Transcript written on main.log.

Chapter Introduction is the first chapter I have immediately after the table of contents.

Of course, before adding the lines you suggested the file compiled without errors and a very nice PDF was produced.

I tried the simplest modification possible as well, that is, just adding the line

\chapter{Preface}

just before the comments:

%—————————————————————————————-
% TABLE OF CONTENTS
%—————————————————————————————-

but even this simple modification produced the error reported above.

Thanks once again,
Lorenzo

[templateuser]

Solved! The command \chapter just needed an asterisk to suppress the chapter number. Therefore, the command should be written as:

\chapter*{Preface}

Is it possible to make appear the Preface listed in the Table of Contents and to assign lowercase roman numbers to the pages before the Table of Contents itself?

Thanks
Lorenzo

[Vel]

Hey Lorenzo,

I had that error come up too (“LaTeX Error: Something’s wrong–perhaps a missing \item.“), but if I skip it when it first comes up it doesn’t come up again.

Regarding roman numbers prior to the table of contents, have a look at the Masters/Doctoral Thesis template for an example of how to do that.

Cheers,
Vel