Office of Graduate Studies Thesis and Dissertation Formatting Guidelines
These rules are taken from the KU Office of Graduate Studies Thesis or Dissertation Formatting Guidelines. To see the full thesis or dissertation formatting requirements, visit https://graduate.ku.edu/submitting
Converting to PDF
When your document is entirely finished and you are ready to upload it to ProQuest, you will first need to convert it to PDF format. Most computers at KU have PDF conversion functions installed, so to convert to PDF:
- First, save the final version of your document as a regular .docx file.
- Next, click File then Save As...
- From the Save as type (PC) or Format (Mac) drop-down menu, choose PDF.
- Click Save.
If your computer does not have an option to save a document as a PDF file, you can download a free PDF converter from CutePDF.
There are online utilities which will also convert a file to PDF for you, however, these do sacrifice the security of your document, as it has to be uploaded to a distant server for the conversion.
Further, Adobe Acrobat contains tools that allow you to modify PDF files (adding bookmarks, hyperlinks, and other elements), create a single PDF from multiple source files, and add interactive form fields (Pro version only).
If your version of Word does not offer PDF creation or for more advanced PDF functions, many KU computer labs and library computers have Adobe Acrobat Pro installed. For more information on accessing Adobe Acrobat Pro at KU, visit https://technology.ku.edu/software/adobe-acrobat
