There isn't too much about format checking: you just give your thesis to the format checking guy and he will do it for you. But there are a few things that you can do to speed up this process.

First, always do your title page check first, you can do it any time at the Thesis Office in coble hall, sometimes it saves a lot of time for you later.

Second, if you have shown your thesis to all your Ph.D. committee members and they are more or less satisfied (meaning they won't require too much modifications), then you can actually start format-checking before you defend your thesis. Of course you have to tell the format-checking people this, request an early-stage format checking. Most of the time they will accomodate you if they are not extremely busy. By doing this you can save almost a week of time, since it's the always the first-round check that takes most of the time. You can discover all the major modifications that you would have to make.

Buy at least four brown thesis folders from the ECE store room in Everitt. You need two for graduate school, one for ECE department, and one for format-checking.

Remeber you need an extra title page and an extra unnumbered abstract page to go with your thesis for microfilming. Download abs.tex and modify it to get your extra abstract page.

Prepare a note, write down your email address and other contact information, stick it to your thesis folder. The format-check guys like people who make their job easier.

When you are done with format checking, now it is time to deposit the thesis