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Document classes in LaTeX provide automation to improve consistency, productivity, and accuracy in creating and maintaining documents, thereby avoiding the inefficiencies of wordprocessors. However, users who want to package their macros or applications as a document class are often put off by the apparent complexity of the sample classes in the standard distribution. This paper describes what the code in the article document class file does and suggests solutions to some of the popular requirements for changes.

Peter Flynn is manager of the electronic publishing unit at University College Cork and also runs a small consultancy handling industrial, research, and legal documentation. He found TeX in 1979 and has used it for everything from business cards to posters. Peter can be reached at

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