Microsoft Word for Dissertations

Formatting your dissertation (or thesis) will likely take more time than you expect. But using the special features described in this Guide will save you a great deal of work, particularly if you use our template (available in the box below). The earlier you begin to use these tools, the more time you'll save and the less stress you'll have as your submission deadline approaches. Students at the University of Michigan are also encouraged to contact the experts at the Library's ScholarSpace anytime you run into a problem or have a question.

To meet Rackham’s Dissertation Formatting Guidelines – as well as any set by your school or department – you will need to modify the standard settings that Microsoft Word uses. This online guide is intended to show you how to use the tools to make the necessary modifications.  While we do follow the requirements from Rackham’s formatting guidelines to demonstrate the tools, in the end, you are responsible for verifying that your document meets the requirements that Rackham sets.

To save yourself time and effort, please consider using our Dissertation Template (link available in the box below). Many of the settings discussed in this Guide are already included in that document.

Please note that, as a University of Michigan student, you have free access to the Microsoft Office suite of tools -- including Microsoft Word. Visit this link to learn more and to download Office to your own computer.

Contribute to this document! While we've been supporting the use of Microsoft Word for dissertations for more than a decade and pride ourselves on knowing Word better than most, there are many ways to do everything in Word. So if you discover something you think works better than what we've suggested (or even something we've gotten wrong), email us and let us know!

A word about LaTeX

LaTeX is a writing and markup language often used in science and engineering documents because it allows for great control in creating complex equations and formulas. ScholarSpace does not maintain a template for dissertations created with LaTeX, and we can only provide very limited support for it. That said, there is a community of U-M folks who actively maintain this LaTeX template to keep it in line with Rackham's guidelines.

Here are some other very useful resources:

• Video recording of a UM Library Workshop on Dissertation Formatting with LaTeX
• Documentation for LaTeX and Overleaf
• Bibiliography Management with LaTeX
• How to Write a Thesis in LaTeX
• A huge collection of LaTeX resources

Writing Assistance

This Guide is all about how to properly format your dissertation -- how to make it look the way Rackham wants it to look. But what if you need help with the actual composition of your content? Our friends at the Sweetland Writing Center offer such assistance, through their Writing Workshop program. From their website:

These are just a few quick but especially important tips to help you get started. See our more expansive Tips & Troubleshooting section for suggestions that are a little more complex.

• Save early, save often, and create backup versions as you go along.
• Be sure to toggle the visibility of non-printing characters ( on the Home ribbon) so you can see how your document is being formatted, and avoid accidentally deleting section and page breaks. Deleting these can affect Style formatting, page numbering, and other aspects of your document.
• Use our template (available above), it will save you lots of time. Nearly all of the difficult formatting stuff we discuss in this Guide is already built into the template. Consider doing all of your writing in it -- even if you're working in separate files for each chapter, you can use the template for each one of those chapters.
• Use Styles to control the formatting of your dissertation. The bulk of this Guide revolves around the use of styles. Styles allow you to:
  • Set the margins including the two-inch margin for chapters titles (Setting Margins).
  • Define styles for Headings 1-3, Normal, Captions, and Quotes – these are most common; you may need others (Working with Styles).
  • If headings need to be numbered (for example, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, etc.), define a multi-level list (Automatic Numbering).
  • If captions need to include the chapter number, define a multi-level list (Automatic Numbering).
• Share your file(s) with your advisors using Track Changes (Commenting and Reviewing).
• If you use EndNote to manage your citations and create your bibliography, use only one EndNote library for your entire dissertation (see our EndNote Basics guide).
• Did we mention that you really ought to try out our template (available above)?