[pdftex] pdf on Mac -- trouble recognizing documentclass{article}

[Anne Gilman]

Hi, 

Some help getting off the starting block would be MUCH appreciated;
haven't found these errors in either the manual or the list archive.

I'm trying to run pdftex on Mac OS 10.3.5, and I used the iTeX
installer to install and configure the installation.  pdftex --help
shows up fine, but running the program itself is really not working,
see below.

Am a new grad student at the Univ. of New Hampshire & have not found
any local LaTeX fans.... Am not handy w/OSX but don't know how to do
research w/o BibTex.

Thanks for any help,

Anne

=================running on example.tex========

[prompt]% pdftex example
This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.11b (Web2C 7.5.2)
 %&-line parsing enabled.
 (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/web2c/cp8bit.tcx)
(./example.tex{/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/pdftex/config/pdftex.cfg}
! Undefined control sequence.
l.1 \Header
           {example}{Run an Examples Section from the Online Help}
? 


=================running on a tiny article=======

[prompt]% pdftex FirstArt
This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.11b (Web2C 7.5.2)
 %&-line parsing enabled.
 (/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/web2c/cp8bit.tcx)
(./FirstArt.tex{/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/pdftex/config/pdftex.cfg}
! Undefined control sequence.
l.1 \documentclass
                  {article}
? x