[texworks] message from TeXworks user(MiKTeX)-undefined control sequence document class article

[Stefan Löffler]

Hi Rob,

On 2009-10-29 20:35, Robert MacDonald wrote:
> I just installed Miktex 2.8 on a windows XP -SP3 machine. Miktex and
> TexWorks seem to run fine. But when I try to typeset a test document
> (see bellow), I get a spool of error messages. It seems as though the
> class article can not be found. I searched my harddrive for the the
> .cls file but could not find it.

This looks like a MiKTeX problem to me...
Anyway: Could you provide a _minimal_ example of a document that doesn't
work? The doc you sent included dozens of (non-standard) packages,
images, large tables, etc. which only complicate matters and obscure the
main source of the problem. Something simple like
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Hello World.
\end{document}

Please also attach the log file of the (La)TeX run, otherwise it's
difficult to diagnose anything.

> The last time I used Latex I remember I had to have the .cls file in
> the same folder as the .tex files. Can anyone point me in the right
> direction. I also tried using some alternate .cls files which I found
> in the tex/latex folder of the installation. These gave the same error.

You don't have to put the .cls file in the same folder, no. Normally,
they are put in a thing called the texmf tree, which is basically a
central place for all files LaTeX may need. Depending on your
installation, this could be anywhere on your harddisk, but most probably
it is located somewhere in your MiKTeX installation directory.
However, the article class should always be present. If MiKTeX indeed
doesn't find it, there may be something wrong with its internal data of
what is where in the texmf tree. IIRC, there's a button in one of the
MiKTeX tools (probably the package manager) to recreate the database of
files in the texmf tree - you could try that one.
Also, do you have other installations of (La)TeX (e.g. still have or
recently removed an older MiKTeX version)? This could also add to the
confusion.

HTH
-Stefan