TexWorks vs. TexShop: Creating LaTex Documents for Beginners

[wil3]

Hello, this is going to sound like a dumb question, but I cannot for the life of me seem to make a LaTex document in either of these programs. I use the standard heading codes (document class, etc) and hit the render buttons, and get absurd errors. Can someone who uses either talk me through, in baby steps, how they start a document in either one?

Please don't direct me to some LaTex tutorial like everyone else. I know the code, but I don't know the specific programs.

Also, is pdfTex or LaTex recommended? I plan on using this to make pdfs of my undergraduate problem sets, primarily.

Thanks very much!

 

[CompuChip]

Usually you can just install them, type up a document, and it should work.
If it doesn't, then something is wrong. To help you find what, you're going to have to give us some more information. Posting the absurd errors you get might be a good start :-)

If you want to make PDF, I would use pdflatex. It creates a PDF directly, whereas latex creates a DVI file (which you can convert to PS, which you can convert to PDF; probably losing some fonts and image quality along the way).