PhD Degrees

Graphic design of the Thesis

All the text contained in the thesis (including title page, abstracts, dedications, acknowledgments, preface, summaries, indexes, bibliographies, etc. and including images, tables, graphics integrated in the text) even if it originally consists of several files, must be provided in a single file in PDF/A format no larger than 10 Mbytes.
The upload must be done in your reserved area > Student secretarial services - Esse3 > Graduation > Graduation thesis upload and supervisor acceptance > upload the thesis.

Abstract and Frotispiece Formats


PDF/A Format

PDF/A  is an international standard (ISO19005), a subset of the PDF standard, specially designed for long-term archiving of electronic documents.

This standard ensures that the document can always be viewed in the same way, even over time and with different software programs.
The PDF/A standard is divided into two parts. Only PDF/A-1 is approved, and it is divided into two levels:

  •  PDF/A-1a = maximum required by the standard
  •  PDF/A-1b = minimum required by the standard

PDF/A contains only the information necessary to view the document as it was formed. All visible content of the document must be included, such as text, images, vector graphics, fonts, colors and more. A PDF/A document cannot contain macro-instructions or references to elements or information (such as fonts) not contained in the file itself.

Tools for creating the PDF/A format:

Various products and tools are commercially available for the creation, processing and verification of documents in PDF/A format. In particular, the following tools are noted:

Use the OpenOffice product, starting from version 2.4, downloadable for free from the site.

Instructions for producing a PDF/A with OpenOffice:

  • open the text document relating to the deed drawn up with your reports (even if in .doc or .xls format) using the installed OpenOffice software (swriter)
  • then from the "File" menu item choose the option "Export in Pdf format….."
  • from the "PDF Options" menu that appears, in the "General" section, set the "PDF/A-1" box
  • activate the "Export" button.
  • save the document.

The document thus saved (with the .pdf extension) will be in PDF/A format.

Use the Adobe Professional product, starting with version 8 (paid product).

Instructions for producing a PDF/A with Adobe Professional:

  • from the creation application (e.g. from Word) choose File>Print, then choose "Adobe PDF" as the printer;
  • click on "Properties";
  • choose the PDF/A option from the settings menu;
  • save the document.

The document thus saved (with the .pdf extension) will be in PDF/A format.

Check if a document is in PDF/A format

Verification of a document in PDF/A format is achieved through specialized products. Among others, we note:

  • Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional and higher (for a fee);
  • various tools for which there are trial and paid versions (see the PDFA site for a list).

Check if a document is not in PDF/A format

A first check for the PDF/A format is done with Acrobat Reader version 9.0:

  • open Acrobat Reader and from the "Edit" menu select the "Preferences" item then check/set the "view documents in PDF/A mode" option with the value "Only for PDF/A documents" (usually the default option in installation ).
  • Acrobat Reader 9 automatically highlights the information "the document is displayed in PDF/A mode" at the top of the page. In this case the document can be PDF/A, but the sure certification of this format is given by the other tools indicated above.

The use of Acrobat Reader 9 is therefore useful for verifying whether a document is not PDF/A, in fact if the above wording does not appear the file is not PDF/A. If the indicated wording appears, the document may be PDF/A, but the format certification must be verified with the tools described in the previous paragraph.