We describe the options available in LaTeX for specifying the overall style of a document.
A LaTeX document should begin with a \documentclass
command and any text to be printed must be included between
\begin{document}
and \end{document}
commands. The \begin{document}
command is often
preceded by commands that set the page-style and set up
user-defined control sequences.
Here is a typical LaTeX input file:
\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article} \begin{document} This is the first paragraph of a typical document. It is produced in a `12~point' size. A \emph{point} is a unit of length used by printers. One point is approximately $1/72$~inch. In a `12~point' font the height of the parentheses is 12~points (i.e. about $1/6$~inch) and the letter~`m' is about 12 points long. This is the second paragraph of the document. There are also `10 point' and `11 point' styles available in LaTeX. The required size is specified in the `documentclass' command. If no such size is specified then the 10~point size is assumed. \end{document}
The syntax of the \documentclass
command is as
follows. The command begins with \documentclass
and ends with the names of one of the available styles,
enclosed in braces. The available styles are
article
, report
, book
and letter
. Between the ``\documentclass
''
and the name of the document style, one may place a
list of options. These options are separated by
commas and the list of options is enclosed in square
brackets (as in the above example). The options
available include the following:
11pt
12pt
twocolumn
a4paper
Typing simply \documentclass{article}
will produce a
document in ten-point type size. However the printed output
will not be nicely positioned on A4 paper, since the default
size is intended for a different (American) paper size.
Pages will be automatically numbered at the bottom of the
page, unless you specify otherwise. This can be done using the
\pagestyle
command. This command should come after the
\documentclass
command and before the
\begin{document}
command. This command has the
syntax \pagestyle{
option}
, where
the option is one of the following:
article
and report
document styles.
\markboth
and
\markright
commands (see the LaTeX manual).
produces a document without page numbers, using the standard ten-point type size.\documentclass[a4paper]{article} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} The main body of the document is placed here. \end{document}