A primer to your first document: The sheet and Language
Published: 2021-01-16 14:05:55

Hello everyone :) 

As I have uttered in [this](https://dev.to/latexteada/setting-down-the-blog-the-structure-2155) post, I am going to start with the very basics, this is, *How to configure the sheet where I will be working* and some *basics commands*


# *documentclass* Command

Do you remember that in [this](https://dev.to/latexteada/halt-do-not-just-scribble-document-structure-9e6) article I told you about the arguments, well welcome to your first command with both of them 

```
\documentclass[optional]{typeOfDocument}
```

This is the first command that you need to put in your document, there you configure the type of document, as follows:

* In `[optional]` you put the size of the paper and the font size, some of them are
    * **Size of paper:** a4paper, a5paper, letterpaper (default), legalpaper
    * **Font size:** 10pt, 11pt, 12pt. We can add more sizes but we need to import other stuff, we are going to work with these fonts sizes

* In `{typeOfDocument}` you put the type of document you are going to work with, these can be article, book, beamer, etc.
    * There are more types of documents, but we are going to be focused on these

So
```
\documentclass[12pt, a4paper]{article}
```
Is an *article* with paper size *a4paper* and the font size *12pt*

> Everything is going well, we just have configured the most important thing, the font size and the type of document. Now let's configure our working area, it is, the margins, but before that, we need to explain something important

# Packages
A package is a bunch of code, that is in a file, which adds features to our document. **The packages must be in the preamble.** We can add a package to our document with 
```
\usepackage{nameOfThePackage}
```
## The *geometry* package
We modify the dimensions of our working area with this package
```
\usepackage[dimensions]{geometry}
```
In `[dimensions]` we set the margins, we can use
* pt: point, mm: millimeter, cm: centimeter, in: inch

So 
```
\usepackage[left=2cm, right=1.5cm, top=1.5cm, bottom=1.5cm]{geometry}
```
It's a document with a left margin of 2cm, and the right, top, and bottom margin of 1.5cm 

> Ok ok, we have set the type of paper, font size, and the margins, everything is ready to start writing. 

# Language

> The default language is English

If we want to write in another language we must import some packages

## *inputenc* package
Allows us to specify a specific input encoding
```
\usepackage[typeOfEncoding]{inputenc}
```
* For Spanish, German and Russian we use `utf8`

## *fontenc* package
Allows us to select font encodings, this is, the *special* characters used in the different languages
```
\usepackage[typeOfEncoding]{fontenc}
```
* German: `T1`, Russian: `T2A`

## *babel* package
Allows us to use special characters of the language and also translates some elements, predetermined ones, in the document
```
\usepackage[language]{babel}
```
Where in `language` we put the name of the language. 
* German: `ngerman`, Russian: `russian`, Spanish: `spanish`

### Multiple languages
What happens if we use more than one language in the document where we are working. Well, we just add all the languages that we are using separated by commas
```
\usepackage[l1,...,ln]{babel} 
```
### Prefered Language
The `babel` package, as we have checked, translate into another language some elements, the predetermined ones. If we are using multiple languages and we want the titles of sections or predefined words were translated into the language we want we just need to put `main=language` to that language that we want
```
\usepackage[main=l1,...,ln]{babel} 
```
* Of course, this will happen if we have set the current encoding types in `fontenc` and `inputenc`. If we have not set these, we will get an error or the titles will not be translated into the language desired

# An Example
![blog](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/qeunnjnzr9c8m1e2w5p7.png) 
 
This is a document of type `article` with font-size `12pt` and size of paper `letterpaper`. Its margins are `left=2cm, right=1.5cm, top=1.5cm, bottom=1.5cm`, the author will write on a `utf8` encoding and will use the Russian language because the `T2A` package was imported. The document has the Russian language as the first language, this is, all the titles will appear in Russian. The body of the text is *Hello, do not forget to follow me in `@latexteada`. 
Спасибо - gracias en Ruso (Texto en Español)*

Just compile it, if you do not remember you can revise it [here](https://dev.to/latexteada/kicking-off-with-latex-installation-140k). Do not cry of happiness, this is your second LaTeX document

Thanks, do not forget that you can comment on how was your experience or share something.

See you :)