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As in, do you have a .tex file from which you begin every document? This hypothetical file would contain most of the things you use in each document on a regular basis. For example, here's my "template".

\documentclass[10pt,letterpaper]{article}       % Basics
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}                     % Inputs
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}                        % Inputs
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}               % 1 inch margins
\usepackage[pdfauthor={author},                 % Begin PDF metadata
            pdftitle={title},
            pdfproducer={LaTeX with hyperref},
            pdfcreator={pdflatex}]{hyperref}    % End PDF metadata
\hypersetup{
            colorlinks,                         % Begin setup of link colors
            citecolor=black,
            filecolor=black,
            linkcolor=black,
            urlcolor=black,                     % End setup
            pdfpagemode=UseNone                 % Disables bookmarks sidebar auto appearing
            }

\title{title}
\author{author}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
Insert body here.
\end{document}

I get the feeling that I'm missing some essential packages, but that's what I use to start out each document I make.

Kevin Dong
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    Have you seen What packages do people load by default in LaTeX?? – cgnieder Jun 26 '13 at 23:25
  • That being said: I don't have a common preamble for documents - it depends on what I need for the specific document – cgnieder Jun 26 '13 at 23:27
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    Some editors use 'wizards' for that. In certain instances you can even set up yourself, what that automatically generated preamble should contain. But I don't think there is a universal, one-size-fits-all variant. And neither should there be one IMHO. – Count Zero Jun 26 '13 at 23:29
  • @cgnieder Thanks for that link! A quick Google search found nothing, so I made a post about it. – Kevin Dong Jun 26 '13 at 23:32
  • @CountZero I find those "wizards" to be usually quite lackluster in terms of options and helpfulness. – Kevin Dong Jun 26 '13 at 23:33
  • I would recommend you create a .sty file that contains all the packages and settings you desire. Then, if you come across a slight tweak that a document needs, you can include some conditional compilation in the .sty file. But you should start off with the bare minimum you need and only add packages as you need them. If you are going to be doing any math in your documents you should also include mathtools package (it already includes amsmath). But these should be enough packages to get started. – Peter Grill Jun 27 '13 at 00:20

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