# Creating LaTeX Documents

All LaTeX documents share the same basic structure, with the following elements defined.

Document Class
Preamble (optional)
Document Contents

The simplest document then looks like this:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
Hello, world
\end{document}

# Document Class

All documents written in LaTeX have a class associated with them. The common options are article, report, book and letter.

Each of these options will define certain parameters suitable for that type of document (e.g. a book may have chapters).

For starting out it's generally safe to use article for most documents.

# Preamble

This is where any extra configuration is placed typically this can be loading extra functionality with additional packages, or defining new macros for your document.

Shown below is an example of including the amsmath package for extra maths typesetting options, and defining a new command called \foo which will output bar in our final output.

\usepackage{amsmath}
\newcommand{\foo}{bar}

# Document Contents

This is where the body of the document lives, the whole document is enclosed between the opening \begin{document} and the closing \end{document}.

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