Time for action – writing our first document with TeXworks

Our first goal is to create a document that's printing out just one sentence. We want to use it to understand the basic structure of a LaTeX document.

1. Launch the TeXworks editor by clicking on the desktop icon or open it in the Start menu.

2. Click on the New button.

3. Enter the following lines:

   \documentclass{article}
   \begin{document}
   This is our first document.
   \end{document}

4. Click on the Save button and save the document. Choose a location where you want to store your LaTeX documents, ideally in its own folder.

   

5. In the drop-down field in the TeXworks toolbar, choose pdfLaTeX:

   
6. Click the Typeset button .

7. The output window will automatically open. Have a look at it:

   

What just happened?

You have just seen the first few minutes of the life of a LaTeX document. Its following hours and days will be determined by editing, typesetting, and so on. Don't forget to save your document frequently.

As announced in contrary to the classic word processor software, you cannot see the effect of changes immediately—but the result is just one click away.

Have a go hero – checking out advanced LaTeX editors

Do you have experience in working with complex programs? Do you like using a feature-rich and powerful editor? Then have a look at these LaTeX editors. Visit their websites to find screenshots and to read about their features:

• TeXnicCenter— a very powerful editor for Windows, http://texniccenter.org/

• Kile— a user-friendly editor for operating systems with KDE, such as Linux, http://kile.sourceforge.net/

• TeXShop— an easy-to-use and very popular editor for Mac OS X, http://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/texshop/

• Texmaker— a cross-platform editor running on Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, and Windows systems, http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/

The mentioned editors are free open source software.