If you write in LaTeX and your graduate school hands you a Word file, you already know the problem. The question is not whether LaTeX is allowed, since nearly every Canadian university accepts a PDF produced by any tool. The question is whether anyone at your university maintains a class file that matches the rules your thesis will be checked against.
We went through the verified formatting records for 53 universities in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia and counted.
Short answer: 10 of 53
Ten institutions publish an official, university-wide LaTeX thesis template. Six are in Ontario (Toronto, Waterloo, Western, Ontario Tech, Laurentian, RMC) and four are in Quebec (Université Laval, Polytechnique Montréal, HEC Montréal, ÉTS). British Columbia has none.
Two more exist below the university level. Bishop’s publishes the buthesis class, which is compulsory in Computer Science and unknown to the rest of the campus, and Sherbrooke’s Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences ships a package that includes a LaTeX version while the Science protocol sits behind a login.
Everywhere else, LaTeX users start from a community file, a department file, or nothing.
Master table
| Institution | Prov. | Official Word template | Official LaTeX template | Maintained by, and what else circulates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Toronto | ON | Yes | Yes | SGS; ut-thesis class on CTAN |
| University of Waterloo | ON | Yes (.dotm, login) | Yes | IST, hosted on Overleaf |
| Western University | ON | Yes | Yes | SGPS; westernthesis.tex, plus a LyX version |
| University of Ottawa | ON | Partial (cover page, EN + FR) | No | community uo-thesis on GitHub, not endorsed |
| Toronto Metropolitan | ON | No | No (department only) | Math MSc and PhD files; campus Overleaf portal |
| Carleton University | ON | Partial (title page) | No | community Overleaf and GitHub classes |
| University of Guelph | ON | Yes (3 files) | No | Word only; page links to external LaTeX advice |
| Queen’s University | ON | Yes (.docm) | No (department only) | ECE class on the Queen’s engineering GitLab |
| York University | ON | No (sample pages) | No | york-thesis on CTAN, yorkuthesis on GitHub, both community |
| McMaster University | ON | No (sample pages) | No | several community Overleaf templates |
| University of Windsor | ON | Yes (Mar 2025) | No | community Overleaf and GitHub only |
| Ontario Tech University | ON | Yes | Yes | SGPS; LaTeX pilot dated 15 December 2025 |
| Laurentian University | ON | Yes (EN + FR) | Yes (EN only) | FGS ZIP built on the report class |
| Brock University | ON | No | No | post-deposit review, no template |
| Wilfrid Laurier | ON | No | No | calendar rules only |
| Trent University | ON | No | No | 2025 PDF guide only |
| Lakehead University | ON | No | No | specs delegated to departments |
| Nipissing University | ON | Partial (PDF structure files) | No | no editable template |
| Royal Military College | ON | Yes (intranet) | Yes (intranet) | login gated; an unofficial RMCC class also sits on Overleaf |
| OCAD University | ON | No | No | requirements and checklist only |
| Saint Paul University | ON | No | No | faculty guides; deposits to uO Research |
| Tyndale University | ON | No | No | 2024 handbook only |
| NOSM University | ON | No | No | specs on a login intranet |
| Algoma University | ON | No | No | no public formatting guide at all |
| Université Laval | QC | No (consultations instead) | Yes | ulthese on CTAN, works on Overleaf |
| Polytechnique Montréal | QC | Yes (mandatory) | Yes | DAAEE bilingual package, class plus MemoireThese.sty |
| HEC Montréal | QC | Yes (4 to 5) | Yes | hecthese on CTAN, maintained by the library |
| ÉTS | QC | Yes | Yes | thETS class, official Bitbucket repository |
| Université de Montréal | QC | Yes (these_udem.dotx) | No | maths department files the library says must be adapted |
| McGill University | QC | Yes (2 proposed) | No | three Overleaf templates, none checked by GPS |
| Concordia University | QC | Yes (2) | No | community Overleaf only |
| UQAM | QC | Yes (.dotx) | No (department only) | memoireuqamV2 from maths, program approval required |
| INRS | QC | Yes (3 .dotx) | No | community GitHub class, user supported by admission |
| Université de Sherbrooke | QC | Partial (faculty level) | Partial (faculty level) | FLSH package; Science protocol behind a login |
| Bishop’s University | QC | No | Department only | buthesis, compulsory in Computer Science |
| UQAC | QC | Yes (.docx) | No | student GitHub template |
| UQAT | QC | Yes (2 versions) | No | binding and non-binding variants |
| UQAR | QC | Yes (canvases) | No | library canvases, some behind the portal |
| UQO | QC | Partial | No | master’s follows UQO, education doctorate follows UQAM |
| UQTR | QC | Partial (title pages) | No | 11 title page files, no full document |
| ENAP | QC | Yes (4) | No | form is graded by the jury |
| TELUQ | QC | Yes (2) | No | no LaTeX guidance anywhere on the site |
| UBC | BC | Yes | No | three community classes linked with a written disclaimer |
| Simon Fraser University | BC | Yes | No | library template; LaTeX not found |
| University of Victoria | BC | No (sample pages) | No | style rules and checklist only |
| UNBC | BC | Partial (library) | No | guidelines PDF plus a library workshop |
| Thompson Rivers | BC | No (style guide) | No (program only) | MSc Data Science template on Overleaf |
| Royal Roads University | BC | Partial (login) | No | SET handbook is public, templates are not |
| Vancouver Island University | BC | No | No | procedures listed, documents not retrievable |
| University of the Fraser Valley | BC | No | No | two guideline PDFs only |
| Emily Carr University | BC | No | No | repository submission guidelines only |
| Trinity Western | BC | Partial (title page) | No | guidebook with an approved title page |
| Adler University (Vancouver) | BC | Not found | Not found | nothing published |
The official classes, with links
Université Laval, ulthese. The cleanest case in the country. A real LaTeX class on CTAN, French first, and it compiles on Overleaf without local installation. ctan.org/pkg/ulthese
HEC Montréal, hecthese. Version 3.0, built on memoir, with msc and phd options and monograph or article variants. It is maintained by the library, which is unusual and is the reason it stays current. ctan.org/pkg/hecthese
University of Toronto, ut-thesis. On CTAN, referenced by the School of Graduate Studies alongside its Word template. ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/ut-thesis
ÉTS, thETS. Distributed from an official Bitbucket repository with a French guide. Be warned that the class deliberately locks paper size, margins, line spacing and two-sided layout, and it disables short titles and starred divisions such as \chapter*. Redefining them produces a compilation error rather than a silent override. bitbucket.org/support-latex_ETS/template-latex-ets
Polytechnique Montréal. A bilingual package updated in April 2025, containing a book-based class, MemoireThese.sty, IEEEtran and IEEEtran-francais bibliography styles, and a complete demonstration thesis. The download sits on the school’s document server; start from the library thesis guide. guides.biblio.polymtl.ca/these
Western University, westernthesis.tex. grad.uwo.ca/doc/academic_services/thesis/latex/westernthesis.tex
University of Waterloo. An IST-approved template for cloud editing. overleaf.com/latex/templates/university-of-waterloo-thesis-template
Ontario Tech University. The newest arrival, a pilot ZIP dated 15 December 2025 published next to the Word template. Ontario Tech LaTeX thesis template
Laurentian University. English only, built on the default report class with no explicit geometry, so it mirrors the Word rules rather than enforcing them. Laurentian LaTeX thesis template
Royal Military College. Official Word and LaTeX templates exist but live on a login-gated intranet, so there is no public URL to give. The public guidelines PDF carries the specifications.
Bishop’s, buthesis. Department of Computer Science, version 2.6, and its use is compulsory for dissertations and thesis proposals in that department. cs.ubishops.ca/tex/buthesis.cls
Community Overleaf templates, and why they fail format review
Search “thesis Overleaf” plus almost any Canadian university name and you will find something. The gallery has McGill PhD, McGill ECE, a McGill version without the logo, several McMaster variants including a sandwich-format one, a Carleton PhD template, York, RMCC, and Concordia. None of them is checked by the university that appears in the title.
Three failure modes come up again and again.
They describe themselves as compliant. The McGill Overleaf templates state that they follow GPS requirements. GPS has never reviewed them. Nothing stops a template from being right on the day it was uploaded and wrong two years later.
They are stale. The York yorkuthesis class on GitHub was last updated in 2019, and the york-thesis class on CTAN is likewise community work. Rules that changed since then, on generative AI statements, on tagged PDF and accessibility, on pagination, are simply absent.
They come from a department, not a graduate school. UQAM’s memoireuqamV2 is hosted by the mathematics department and the guide tells you to check with your program direction whether it is even authorized. Queen’s ECE template covers one department out of the whole university. Université de Montréal’s LaTeX files come from the mathematics and statistics department, and the library states plainly that they must be adapted to meet the graduate school requirements. INRS goes further and says technical support for its LaTeX model rests on the user community, since no staff member can follow it up.
That is the pattern worth remembering. When a university disclaims a template, it is not being unhelpful. It is telling you that the file will not be defended for you at deposit.
UBC is the most explicit of all. Its graduate school links three community classes, from Michael McNeil Forbes, Jeremy Wong and Brian de Alwis, with the note that requirements have changed since they were developed, that using one of the classes does not guarantee a successful submission, and that no technical assistance is available. UBC then reviews every thesis at final submission, and roughly 30 percent come back for changes.
A word on classicthesis, which people often reach for. It is a general purpose style on CTAN with no relationship to any Canadian university. It is beautiful and it will not match your graduate school’s title page, margins or front matter order.
Universities with no template at all
Some institutions publish rules and nothing else. In Ontario, York, McMaster, Brock, Wilfrid Laurier, Trent, Lakehead, OCAD, Saint Paul, Tyndale, NOSM and Algoma give you no downloadable thesis document, Word or LaTeX. York alone has roughly 5,950 graduate students. In British Columbia, UVic, VIU, UFV and Emily Carr are in the same position, and Algoma publishes no public formatting guide at all.
Where a university offers only a title page, as at Carleton, UQTR and Trinity Western, treat it as a decoration on a document you still have to build yourself.
What to do when your university has no LaTeX template
Work from the authoritative document, not from someone else’s file.
- Download your graduate school’s formatting guide and write out the hard numbers: paper size, four margins, body font and size, line spacing, and the exact order of the front matter.
- Check the pagination rule. Roman numerals in the front matter followed by Arabic numerals from the introduction, with an unnumbered title page, is close to universal in Ontario and is one of the most common rejection causes.
- Check the abstract limit. In Ontario, 150 words for a master’s and 350 for a doctorate is the norm, with uOttawa at 150 and 300 and McGill counting 4,000 characters per abstract instead of words.
- Check the copyright line on the title page, and whether the year is the year of submission or the year of convocation. That varies between neighbours.
- Check whether tagged, accessible PDF is required. Waterloo and Guelph enforce it, and a LaTeX build that ignores it will be sent back.
Before you trust a third-party template, check it
If you are about to start writing in a class file you found on Overleaf or GitHub, compile a five-page test document and measure it against your graduate school’s list. Margins, font size, line spacing, front matter order, pagination, abstract length. Ten minutes now is cheaper than a rejected deposit three days before a deadline.
A compliance checker like Uniformat can do that comparison for you: select your university, upload your document, and get the list of deviations from that institution’s current requirements.
Last verified: Ontario data 2 July 2026, Montreal and Quebec data August 2026, British Columbia data 10 July 2026, and this page 3 September 2026. Note, the UBC row was corrected on 3 September 2026 after a direct check of the graduate school’s style guides page, which links community LaTeX classes under an explicit disclaimer rather than an official class. Templates behind a login (Waterloo Word, RMC Word and LaTeX, Sherbrooke Science, some UQAR canvases) could not be given a public URL.
Sources: CTAN ulthese, CTAN hecthese, CTAN ut-thesis, ÉTS thETS repository, Polytechnique library thesis guide, Western thesis formatting, Waterloo thesis formatting, UBC style guides and computer tools, Ontario Tech thesis publications, McGill GPS thesis guidelines, Bishop’s buthesis class, plus the Uniformat verified formatting records for Ontario, Montreal and British Columbia.