A simple newsletter can be typeset with LaTeX, using a variant of the
article class.
The class begins by announcing itself as smplnews.cls.
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\ProvidesClass{smplnews}[1995/04/01 The Simple News newsletter class]
\newcommand{\headlinecolor}{\normalcolor}
It passes most specified options on to the article class: apart from
the onecolumn option, which is switched off, and the green option,
which sets the headline in green.
\DeclareOption{onecolumn}{\OptionNotUsed}
\DeclareOption{green}{\renewcommand{\headlinecolor}{\color{green}}}
\DeclareOption*{\PassOptionsToClass{\CurrentOption}{article}}
\ProcessOptions\relax
It then loads the class article with the option twocolumn.
\LoadClass[twocolumn]{article}
Since the newsletter is to be printed in colour, it now loads the
color package. The class does not specify a device driver option
since this should be specified by the user of the smplnews class.
\RequirePackage{color}
The class then redefines \maketitle to produce the title in 72pt
Helvetica bold oblique, in the appropriate colour.
\renewcommand{\maketitle}{%
\twocolumn[%
\fontsize{72}{80}\fontfamily{phv}\fontseries{b}%
\fontshape{sl}\selectfont\headlinecolor
\@title
]%
}
It redefines \section and switches off section numbering.
\renewcommand{\section}{%
\@startsection
{section}{1}{0pt}{-1.5ex plus -1ex minus -.2ex}%
{1ex plus .2ex}{\large\sffamily\slshape\headlinecolor}%
}
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{0}
It also sets the three essential things.
\renewcommand{\normalsize}{\fontsize{9}{10}\selectfont}
\setlength{\textwidth}{17.5cm}
\setlength{\textheight}{25cm}
In practice, a class would need more than this: it would provide
commands for issue numbers, authors of articles, page styles and so
on; but this skeleton gives a start. The ltnews class file is not
much more complex than this one.