Features
Everything Word makes you do by hand, automated.
Table of contents, pagination, title page, lists of figures, heading numbering: Folio Student generates the academic structure while you write. Here is the detail.
What you save on a dissertation
Breakdown of the formatting tasks Folio Student handles for you.
30 hours is what you spend formatting instead of writing. Folio Student gives them back.
Why not Word, LaTeX or Notion?
All of these tools exist and some are free. The real question isn't the price, it's how many hours of your life you want to spend formatting instead of writing.
| Word | Office 365 Edu | LaTeX (Overleaf) | Notion / Docs | Folio Student | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Student pricing | ≈ 7€/month | Free (.edu / .ac.uk email required) | Free (Overleaf free) | Free | €1.99/month verified · €3.99/month otherwise |
| Pro academic templates | ✗ | ✗ | A few unmaintained templates | ✗ | ✓ |
| Standards-compliant cover page (committee, supervisor, school) | Build it by hand | Build it by hand | Copy code from another dissertation | ✗ | ✓ |
| Automatic table of contents with page numbers | Possible but fragile, breaks on every edit | Same as Word | ✓ | Without page numbers | ✓ |
| Automatic citations and bibliography (add in 1 click, sorted to the standard, clickable in-text calls) | By hand or via Zotero (setup required) | Same as Word | BibTeX (learning curve required) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Flags the passages that call for a source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Page numbering (Roman frontmatter + Arabic body) | Section hacking, fragile | Section hacking, fragile | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Auto lists of figures / tables / abbreviations | Possible but maintained manually | Same as Word | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Built-in academic integrity statement | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Ready-to-submit PDF export in 1 click | Lots of settings | Lots of settings | Compilation can be finicky | Rough layout | ✓ |
| Learning curve | Medium (advanced Word) | Medium (advanced Word) | Steep (50h+ to master) | Low, but not academic-grade output | 5 minutes |
| Formatting time (50-page dissertation) | 20 to 40 h | 20 to 40 h | 5 to 10 h (once mastered) | Can't reach the required quality | 5 to 15 min |
Folio Student isn't a word processor. You simply write your content, or import an existing Word file, and we apply academic conventions (table of contents, title page, heading numbering, pagination) in the background. You stay in control of the writing, we remove the friction of the layout.
Everything a pro dissertation needs, automatic
Templates by level and by field
From a high school internship report to a PhD thesis. Medicine, engineering, law, humanities, fine arts, political science: every field has its conventions, we respect them.
Dynamic cover page
Your school logo, institution name, degree, supervisor, committee, academic year. Fill it in once, we generate a standards-compliant cover page.
A table of contents that actually works
Exact page numbers, updated automatically on every export. No more table of contents drifting because you added a paragraph.
Automatic citations and bibliography
Add a source in one click: the in-text call is numbered, the bibliography is built and sorted to the right standard (APA 7, Vancouver, Chicago, MLA, ISO 690, IEEE), and every call becomes clickable in the PDF. An assistant even flags the passages that call for a source.
Images with clean captions
Drop in an image, we insert it, captioned, numbered, and listed in the list of figures. Swap the image later without breaking the layout.
Built-in academic integrity statement
Standard text matching your institution's wording, signed by hand or electronically. Included by default in nursing theses, master's dissertations and PhD theses.
Generated for you
The academic structure, automated
Automatic table of contents
Generated from your headings (H1, H2), with page numbers. Updated on every export.
Lists of figures and tables
Automatically extracted from your content and placed at the start of the document.
Academic pagination
Front matter in Roman numerals (i, ii, iii), body in Arabic numerals. The convention examiners expect.
Heading numbering
Your sections numbered automatically as 1.1, 1.1.1, with nothing for you to maintain.
Standards-ready title page
6 cover layouts (minimal, school, academic, thesis, medical, fine arts) depending on your document type.
French typography
Non-breaking spaces before : ; ? ! and around quotation marks, applied automatically.
Customization
Tune the layout, or let the template decide
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Body size | 3 sizes (10, 11, 12 pt) | Free, 8 to 14 pt |
| Line spacing | 1.3 / 1.5 / 1.7 / 2.0 | Free, 1.0 to 2.5 |
| Margins | 4 presets (narrow, standard, wide, binding) | Pixel-perfect control |
| Accent color | 5 tones (sepia, navy, forest, bordeaux, graphite) | Free hex color |
| Fonts | 3 (Garamond, Times New Roman, Calibri) | 17 total (+ 14 Pro) |
| Chapter drop cap | No | Available |
Citations and bibliography
Your citations and bibliography, automatic
Each template is paired with the citation standard expected in its field (APA, Vancouver, Chicago, MLA, ISO 690, IEEE). Add a source in one click: the in-text call is numbered, the bibliography is built and sorted to the right standard, and every call becomes clickable in the PDF. An assistant even flags the passages that call for a source.
Ready to format your document?
1 free project, no credit card. Pick your template, we handle the structure.
Start for free