Using Document Classes

Last updated on 2025-06-24 | Edit this page

Estimated time: 12 minutes

Overview

Questions

  • What is a LaTeX Document class?
  • How does a document class affect the layout of a LaTeX document?

Objectives

  • Identify the various types of document classes available in LaTeX
  • Create a document using an alternative document class

What is a Document Class?

A document class sets up the general layout of the document, including (but not limited to):

  • design (margins, fonts, spacing, etc)
  • availability of chapters
  • title page layout

Document classes can also add new commands and environments to the document.

Callout

Document classes can also set global options that apply to the document as a whole.

These options are set in square brackets after the document class name, for example:

LATEX 

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

The Base Document Classes

LaTeX comes with a set of standard document classes:

  • article: a short document without chapters
  • report: a longer document with chapters, intended for single sided printing
  • book: a longer document with chapters, intended for double sided printing, as well as other features like front and back matter
  • letter: a short document with no sections
  • slides: a document for creating slide presentations

We’re going to leave our main.tex file for a minute and play around with some of these document classes.

Writing a Letter

So far we’ve been using the article document class. Let’s try using the letter document class to write a letter.

Callout

We’ve been working in “main.tex” so far, but we can create as many files in this project as we want. Let’s create a new file called “letter.tex” and write our letter there.

LATEX 

\documentclass{letter}

\begin{document}

\begin{letter}{Some Address\\Some Street\\Some City}

\opening{Dear Sir or Madam,}

The text goes Here

\closing{Yours,}

\end{letter}

\end{document}

Callout

Note the \\ used to create line breaks in the address - we’ll get back to line breaking in a bit.

Creating a Presentation

The slides document class was developed for making physical slides in the mid-1980s, and so doesn’t have any of the features we might use in modern presentations. Let’s create a simple presentation using the slides document class. Start another new document called “slides.tex”.

LATEX 

\documentclass{slides}

\begin{document}

\begin{slide}
The slides document class is a good starting point for creating a presentation.
\end{slide}

\begin{slide}
Being entirely text-based, it's not as powerful or user-friendly as modern presentation software.
\end{slide}

\end{document}

When you compile this document, you should end up with a document that has two pages, each with the text of each slide centered in the middle of the page.

Function-rich Classes

The core classes included with base LaTeX are very stable, but this means they are also somewhat conservative in terms of features. Over time, third parties have developed a number of more powerful classes that add new features and functionality to LaTeX documents.

These include:

  • amsbook, amsart, and amsproc: classes for documents that use the American Mathematical Society’s style
  • beamer: a class for creating slide presentations
  • KOMA-Script: a set of classes that provide a more modern look and feel to LaTeX documents by providing parallel classes to the base classes
  • memoir: a class that provides a lot of functionality for creating books, reports, and articles

These classes have a lot of customization options that can be used to alter the appearance of the document to exactly match your needs. We’ll explore how to figure out how to use these classes in a later episode.

Challenges

Challenge 1: Which don’t belong?

Which of the following are not a standard LaTeX document class?

  • article
  • report
  • book
  • letter
  • presentation
  • memoir

presentation is not a standard LaTeX document class - the correct class is slides. Also memoir is not a standard LaTeX document class, but a third-party class.

Challenge 2: What happens?

Suppose we have the following LaTeX slide presentation, but we want to turn it into an article. We can change the document class from “slides” to “article”, but what happens? And why?

LATEX 

\documentclass{slides}

\begin{document}

\begin{slide}
Apples are an edible fruit produced by an apple tree. The tree originated in Central Asia, but
has since been introduced to many other regions.
\end{slide}

\begin{slide}
Some popular apple varieties include:
\begin{itemize}
  \item Gala
  \item Fuji
  \item Golden Delicious
\end{itemize}
\end{slide}

\end{document}

We can change the document class from “slides” to “article”, but the slide environment does not exist in the article document class. We end up with errors when we try to compile the document, complaining that the slide environment is not defined. We need to change the slide environments to sections or subsections to maintain the structure of the document:

LATEX 

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\section{Apples}
Apples are an edible fruit produced by an apple tree. The tree originated in Central Asia, but
has since been introduced to many other regions.

\subsection{Popular Apple Varieties}
Some popular apple varieties include:
\begin{itemize}
  \item Gala
  \item Fuji
  \item Golden Delicious
\end{itemize}

\end{document}

Challenge 3: Make your own beamer slides

Consider the following minimal example of an initial beamer presentation. Let’s create a new file called “beamer.tex” and copy the following code as a template into it:

LATEX 

\documentclass{beamer}
%Information to be included in the title page:
\title{Sample title}
\author{Anonymous}
\institute{Overleaf}
\date{2021}

\begin{document}

\frame{\titlepage}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Sample frame title}
This is some text in the first frame. This is some text in the first frame. This is some text in
the first frame.
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Adapt these slides in the following way:

  1. Change the title to “LaTeX Workshop”
  2. Change the name of the author to your name.
  3. Change the institution name to “ABCD Project Group”.
  4. Change the date to “2025”.
  5. Change the frame title of the first slide after the title page to “What I have learned in this episode” and replace the example text on the slide with your key takeaway from this section.
  6. Besides the title page and the slide after the title page, create a third slide with the title “What I learned in the previous episodes”.
  7. Add an unordered list as content to this slide and describe in three bullet points your key takeaways from the previous episodes.

LATEX 

\documentclass{beamer}
%Information to be included in the title page:
\title{LaTeX Workshop}
\author{My Name}
\institute{ABCD Project Group}
\date{2025}

\begin{document}

\frame{\titlepage}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What I have learned in this episode}
My key takeaway from this episode.
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What I learned in the previous episodes}
\begin{itemize}
  \item Key learning 1
  \item Key learning 2
  \item Key learning 3
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Key Points

  • LaTeX document classes set the general layout of the document
  • The base document classes are article, report, book, letter, and slides
  • Third-party classes can provide additional features