We will create a simple document, document.tex. First, we select a document class, of which there are several with the standard LaTeX distribution, including:

For example, here we start a two column article with 10pt font:

\documentclass[10pt,twocolumn]{article}

Here is a simple document:

\documentclass[10pt,twocolumn]{article}

\title{My Impressive Document Title}
\author{Author N. One\\
Department of Computer Science\\
Clemson University
Clemson, SC, USA\\
{\small one@cs.clemson.edu}\\
\and
Author N. Two\\
University of Someotherplace\\
{\small two@someotherplace.edu}\\
}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\end{document}

Here is an outline for a document:

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\section{Introduction}
\section{Related Work}
\section{Technique}
\section{Case Studies}
\section{Results and Discussion}
\section{Conclusions}

\end{document}

Here we add a label, which may be referenced, to a section:

\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:intro}

The prefix 'sec:' is just a convention and is not required.

To reference a labeled section elsewhere in the document:

\ref{sec:intro}

Here we add an external file to the document:

\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:intro}
\input{sections/intro}

The use of external files makes a document more modular, and eases interaction among co-authors.

Headers and footers are provided by the fancy header package. To add this package to a document:

\documentclass[10pt,twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}

To use this package:

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\thispagestyle{empty}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.0pt}
\thispagestyle{fancy}
%\lhead{}
%\chead{}
%\rhead{Submitted to ISSTA'04}
\lfoot{}
\cfoot{\it Submitted to
The First International Conference on SGA (SGA'06), Chicago, IL, USA, July 5-7, 2006
}
\rfoot{}

The thispagestyle commands are used to remove the header from the title page.

Here we add an abstract to the document:

\begin{abstract}
% In this paper...
\end{abstract}

\section{Introduction}

Here we apply the IEEE 8.5 x 11-Inch Proceedings Style `latex8.sty':

\documentclass[times,10pt,twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{latex8}
\usepackage{times}

Note that custom styles may introduce custom document classes. For example, to apply a CUCS template:

\documentclass[10pt, letterpaper, boxed, hyperref]{CUcsThesis}

Here we add a bibliography to the document:

\bibliographystyle{latex8}
\bibliography{document}

\end{document}

The BibTeX file is named document.bib, and the bibliography will use the style file `latex8.bst'.

Multiple BibTeX files may also be included:

\bibliographystyle{latex8}
\bibliography{nkraft,gdowdin}

\end{document}