Chapter number starts at 2 not 1

Question

How can I start my chapter from "Chapter 2" instead of "Chapter 1".

I am preparing LaTeX document for each chapter. when I put \chapter{Introduction}, it produces "Chapter 1" Introduction. However I want it to be "chapter 2" Introduction instead.

Answer 1

You need to specify \setcounter{chapter}{1} before your chapter command for the introduction. This is due to the fact that the \chapter{} command increments the chapter counter of one before printing any output.

\documentclass{report}

\begin{document}
\setcounter{chapter}{1}
\chapter{Introduction}

\end{document}

This code produces the following output:

EDIT An alternative proposed by Gonzalo Medina is to use instead \stepcounter{chapter} instead of \setcounter{chapter}{1} for the same output.