Theodore System
Theodore is an AI-powered system that transforms the traditional thesis writing process into an efficient, AI-assisted pipeline. It streamlines everything from initial drafts in Markdown to final, professionally formatted documents in Adobe InDesign.
Project Overview
Built on the principle that modern AI tools work best with well-structured, modular content, Theodore provides a comprehensive workflow for authors. By organizing a thesis into manageable sections and files, writers can leverage AI for content generation and revision, maintain robust version control, and automate the publishing process. This system is ideal for PhD students, researchers, and academic writers who want to focus on content creation rather than manual formatting.
Key Features
- AI-Powered Writing: A modular approach allows AI tools to effectively process and enhance content, from generating drafts to tracking multiple rounds of revisions.
- Flexible Content Management: Organize your thesis with customizable section folders and numbered Markdown files for automatic ordering, keeping research materials neatly alongside drafts.
- Automated Publishing Pipeline: Automatically converts Markdown files into the ICML format, ready for import into Adobe InDesign with professional academic paragraph and character styles.
- Developer-Friendly Build System: A simple and reliable build system based on Makefiles provides content validation, clear error handling, and batch processing for efficiency.
Technical Architecture
The system is built on a foundation of powerful and standard command-line tools, ensuring reliability and portability.
- Pandoc: For robust document conversion from Markdown to ICML.
- Make: To automate the entire build and compilation pipeline.
- Bash and Perl: For scripting, text processing, and file management.
This architecture creates a powerful bridge between simple text-based writing and professional desktop publishing.