Some Short Progressive Latex Files to Learn on

Here are some LaTeX files to be used one at a time.  They each add a new feature as they progress.  You will start with a very simple document, and move slowly forward to specific commands and tags.  These files are for a very basic learning process only.  See the "Thesis Template"  section of the papershell.tex example on the TeX page  for a more complete and formal  paper.

Each file is a complete LaTeX document and can be typeset.

You should copy these files to your own directory on your machine.  You only need to copy the file you are trying out, but you can copy them all at once.  They can all be copied to the same directory.  For example, you might create a directory called "trytex" someplace on your machine.  Then right click on the file link (paper1, paper2...), select "save link as", and finally select the directory you wish to save it in (trytex) .

With the file(s) now saved, we can run our LaTeX processor and open the file we wish to typeset (paper1.tex, paper2.tex ....).   After typesetting, many new files will appear, like paper.aux, or paper.toc.  These files are temporary files produced during typesetting.  The final file (in these examples) will be pdf files (paper1.pdf, paper2.pdf.....).

To typeset the document with Winshell, we run pdflatex on the document.  Open the file and hit the "pdftex" button. If it successfully typesets, then you can use the "pdf" viewer button to view it.  For example, we might open paper1.tex,  then typeset it by using the pdftex button.

To typeset the document with Texshop, we also want to run it with pdflatex. Open the file and hit the "typeset" button. The options under the "typeset" menu should have "LaTeX" and "Pdftex" selected (has check marks next to them).

Or,  use your favorite LaTeX processor to typeset the samples.

If you are not sure it worked, try slightly changing some text in the document and see if that change shows up when viewing the document.

All these documents can be placed into the same directory.  They all have unique names and remain independent from one another.

** Paper 1 is the most minimal latex document, just some text.

** Paper 2 adds a title.

** Paper 3 adds sections.

** Paper 3a adds a table of contents. Note: You have to typeset two times to resolve the table of contents and make it look right. (For example: hit pdftex, let it process, than hit pdftex again a second time.)

** Paper 3b adds an author and abstract.

For papers 4 through 8, you will need to get sine.pdf and put it in the same directory as the latex file.

** Paper 4 adds a graphic from file "sine.pdf" (note new "package" line also included). This graphic file is a pdf file. As a learning tool, we are only going to work with pdf graphic files (though other formats are possible, but require different processing).

** Paper 5 adds some math. Note the dollar signs around the math.

** Paper 6 has an error in it, try fixing the error after running pdftex on it.
(look at the output messages from pdftex to find the error.)

** Paper 7 includes a very difficult error to find. If you are running Winshell, try also looking at the log tab below for more messages. This is a good time to bring up comments. The "percent" symbol will comment out text. That is, the text is still there, but ignored by the typesetter. This way you can include your own comments, or use comments to temporarily exclude text you have added. Then later, when you are ready to include it again, all you have to do is remove the "percent" character from the line.

Error hint: if the error is not evident or explained well in the messages, try looking at the log tab (Winshell) or the error log (Texshop).  Make sure all the parameters to the LaTeX commands have closure. Many latex commands are like programming functions in computer code. They take arguments, or parameters, and these parameters are delimited with a brace or bracket. Others start and end with delimiters like "begin {document}", which finds it closure later down the document with "end{document}".  The "begin" function also has an argument, or parameter of its own, "document". The "end" function has the same parameter, "document".

For Paper8 you will need to put a bibliography data base file in your directory.  See below.

**Paper 8 Has a bibliography and some example text. You must have a bibliography database file in your directory. Get one for this example bibliographydatabase.bib. To make this work, you need to typeset (ie pdfLaTeX), then run "bibtex", then typeset again, then typeset yet another time.  That is for Winshell, pdflatex -> bibtex -> pdflatex -> pdflattex. 

See the TeX page for more formal and thorough samples.