Five basic classes

LaTeX2e provides style definitions for 5 basic classes of documents, Other classes are usually variations of the above; for example, the CU Thesis Class is a revision of the report class.

Not every LaTeX environment is defined in each of these classes. For example, you cannot use a figure or table environment in letter or slides classes. For example, you will get an error message if you use 

\begin{figure}
   \caption{Flow Chart of Operations}
   .....
\end{figure}
in a letter or slides document. The available environments are summarized below.

environment article report
(incl. thesis)		 book letter slides
abstract * *      
description * * * * *
figure * * *    
figure* * * *    
quotation * * * * *
quote * * * * *
table * * *    
table* * * *    
thebibliography * * *    
theindex * * *    
titlepage * * *   *
verse * * * * *