Title Page

To put a title page into a document, you could type the following:

\documentclass{report}

\title{Inessential \LaTeX{}}
\author{The Student Information Processing Board}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

Creating a title page is a two step process in L^ATEX. First you give it the information you want it to put on the title page and then you tell it to make the title page. The \title, \author and \date commands do not generate text--they merely specify what \maketitle will place on the title page. If you use \maketitle, you must specify a \title, but any or all of the others may be omitted. The \maketitle command generates the title page. You must place it after the \begin{document}. In the article document style, the title ``page'' is at the top of the first page of the document. To put the title ``page'' on a page by itself place a \newpage command after the \maketitle. In the report and book styles, it is on a separate page at the beginning.  

L^ATEX will automatically number pages, but often you don't want a page number on the title page. To eliminate the page number on the first page, put \thispagestyle{empty} before the \maketitle.

It is possible to number pages alphabetically or with roman numerals. It is also possible to change the current page number. See the section of the L^ATEX manual on page styles.

You can also generate a title page using the titlepage environment. Anything placed in this environment will be placed on the title page (which will be a separate page even if you are using the article document class). Another good way to create a title page is to do it yourself, probably using commands like \begin{center}, \large{}, and \newpage. Using this method, L^ATEX won't know the difference between your title page and any other page, but it may be easier to get what you want.