Slide Show: PDF PostScript Source File (.tex)
Lecture Notes: PDF PostScript Source File (.tex)

Supplemental Docs:

• ctan.org is the best central source for all package information.
• Not So Short Introduction to L^AT_EX § 2.7: pp. 34-36 PDF DVI PostScript
• India T_EX User Group: Introduction to L^AT_EX (PDF) (a good review for material covered to this point).

Topics covered in this slide:

• Creating linebreaks.
• Creating paragraphs.
• Preventing or forcing indentation.
• Creating chapters, sections, and subsections.

Creating spaces, new lines, and paragraphs seem like a trivial matter. There are a couple of ways to do each. LaTeX also ignores when there are multiple spaces, instead, it will insert a single space. For linebreaks, a simple return usually works; however, sometimes it is necessary to force a linebreak with a command (it will become obvious later when this is needed). Since LaTeX ignores multiple spacing, we cannot tab to create an indentation for a paragraph. Instead, after creating two linebreaks, LaTeX will assume it’s a new paragraph and insert it’s own indentation. We are able to control when LaTeX indents and when it does not through commands.

Another important command in LaTeX is its chapter and section command. With this command we can break our document into named and numbered sections. These sections will be automatically formatted (slightly larger and bolder text) and included in a table of contents if we deceide to include one. Section commands are very helpful for large documents and for creating a table of contents.
This slide show should take 10 to 20 minutes.