Typesetting
Typesetting is significantly different from writing. When we write, we are trying to structure and word our thoughts and ideas in such a way that they will be understandable and (hopefully!) engaging to the reader, even if we are the only reader.
Typesetting, on the other hand, is about the visual presentation of written material. You could consider (X)HTML and CSS a way to typeset information on the web, styling in such that visitors of a website are not just presented plain information, but information styled in such a way as to effect some kind of emotional response – does it look appealing? Does it compel the visitor to stay a while and explore the site?
The same goes for regular typesetting: a good book, reader, pamphlet or poster invites the reader or viewer to read more, or look at the material more closely. To this effect, we can choose which fonts to use for which text, how to place texts in relation to each other for visual contrast, which colours to use, and how much empty space is required to make the text appealing.
Particularly this last part is not unimportant: just as music is only real music if there is silence in between the notes, so too text is only real text is there is empty space between the units (letters, words, paragraphs, pages, sections, chapters, etc).
Often, we try to think of some of these things while we’re doing our writing, applying template styles and overwriting them when we want something else, but for proper typesetting you need explicit control over everything that’s going to be relevant to your document’s presentations. For this reason, we’d like to help you out and teach you the basics of the LaTeX typesetting system. It’s not as hard as people make it out to be (although you can certainly make it hard if you want), so if you’re willing to take control over what your written material will really look like, consider the following pages a gentle introduction into knowing what your document will look like, and why.