The Document Format

The engine itself is small — boxes, glue, macros, math. The familiar article furniture (titles, sections, lists, figures) comes from a format you load at the top of a document:

\use{document}

This is the analogue of plain TeX’s format or a LaTeX document class, kept deliberately small. \use resolves the format from texish’s bundled packages, so nothing else is needed. Everything below assumes it is loaded.

Title block

Declare the title, author, and date, then typeset the block with \maketitle:

\title{On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies}
\author{A. Einstein}
\date{June 1905}
\maketitle

Each is optional; \maketitle centers whichever were given.

Abstract

\begin{abstract}
A short summary of the document, indented on both sides under a centered heading.
\end{abstract}

Sections

\section and \subsection are auto-numbered; a subsection’s number resets with each new section. The first paragraph after a heading is set flush left with no indent, as in a LaTeX article; following paragraphs indent.

\section{Introduction}
The opening paragraph sits flush against the left margin.

A second paragraph opens with the usual first-line indent.

\subsection{Background}
Numbered 1.1, 1.2, and so on.

Lists

Lists nest, and the markers hang to the left of the text so wrapped lines align under the content rather than the marker.

\begin{enumerate}
\item First point.
\item Second point.
\end{enumerate}

\begin{itemize}
\item A bullet.
\item Another bullet, with a nested list:
  \begin{itemize}
  \item a deeper bullet.
  \end{itemize}
\end{itemize}

Quotations

quote indents a block on both sides; quotation indents it further. Both revert at the matching \end.

\begin{quote}
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.
\end{quote}

Footnotes

\footnote raises a numbered marker in the text and sets its body at the foot of whatever page the marker lands on.

The result was first noted by Gauss\footnote{In a letter of 1809.} and later refined.

Spacing and page breaks

\smallskip   \medskip   \bigskip       % named vertical gaps
\vskip 12pt plus 2pt minus 1pt         % explicit vertical glue
\vfill                                  % stretchable fill to the page bottom
\eject                                  % force a page break (\vfill\eject to flush)

Running heads and feet

The format ships a page number in the footer. Override \footline, or define a \headline, to change the running head or foot; \the\pageno is the current page.

\def headline {\hfil\italic{Draft}\hfil}

See figures and images for \figure, \caption, and centering, and text and markup for emphasis, code, colour, and links.