Thesis formatting: margins, fonts, line spacing and page numbers

Updated 18 October 2026 · overminder

Every university has its own rules, but most theses use very similar settings. Use these as a starting point and check them against your department’s guidelines.

Typical settings

Element	Typical value
Paper	A4 (21 × 29.7 cm) in Europe; US Letter (8.5 × 11 in) in North America
Margins	2.5 cm / 1 in; binding (inner) margin 3–3.8 cm / 1.25–1.5 in
Font	Times New Roman or a similar serif, 12 pt
Line spacing	1.5 or double (common in the US)
Footnotes	10 pt, single spacing
Long quotations	over three or four lines: indented block, no quotation marks
Page numbers	bottom centre or outer corner; none on the title page
Chapters	always start on a new page, often a right-hand page when printed double-sided

Sample title page

UNIVERSITY OF …
Department of …

THE SLOW CITY
Soft mobility and public space in three medium-sized European cities

A thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Science

Supervisor: Prof. …          Candidate: Jane Smith
                             Student ID: 0001234567
October 2026

Double-sided printing and binding

When printing double-sided, inner and outer margins swap on even pages (mirrored margins) and running heads go left on even pages and right on odd ones. A wider inner margin keeps text out of the binding.

With Gradus

In Settings → Font and page you set paper size, margins, font size and spacing once: all text, even text pasted from Word or the web, takes that style. Headers and footers are built from placeholders (title, chapter, page) and the preview shows the real pages.