[andrewcooke]

i would probably try using pandoc's markdown http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/README.html#pandocs-markdow... and then generating latex from that. but that's because (imho) markdown is easy to edit / read. getting latex output any different from the default is going to involve "learning latex" i suspect.

pandoc is written in haskell and available on linux. for opensuse you can install it from http://software.opensuse.org/search

[i wrote my own thesis in latex, but that was many years ago. another advantage of starting in markdown is that it's easier to get to other formats, like putting your thesis on the web.]