[OS X TeX] Missing \begin{document} error

[Samuel Lelievre]

On 2010-10-16, Herb Schulz wrote:

>On Oct 16, 2010, at 3:56 PM, Josep Maria Font wrote:
>
>> El 16/10/2010, a les 22:11, Don Green Dragon ha escrit:
>>
>>> LaTeX Error: Missing \begin{document}.
>>
>> Yes, 99% of the times, this error is due to an unwanted "typesettable" character in the preamble, i.e., before the actual \begin{document} has been reached. Improving the error message to something similar to "No \begin{document} found before this point" might be advisable.
>>
>>
>> JMaF
>>
>
>Howdy,
>
>... or some other problem in the preamble such as a missing `}' so TeX is continuing to scan.
>
>Good Luck,
>
>Herb Schulz
>(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)


Hello,

The typical thing that gets me this error message is when I forget
a backslash in the name of a new command I'm defining, i.e. I have

  \newcommand{commandname}{blabla}

instead of

  \newcommand{\commandname}{blabla}

in the preamble.

Cheers,
Samuel