\documentclass[12pt,letter]{book}
%\documentclass[14pt,letter]{extbook}
% can use regular 12pt or 14 point
% the below is for 1.5 and 2.0 spacing
\usepackage{setspace}
%
% have nice headers
\pagestyle{headings}
%
% or plain headers
%\pagestyle{plain}
% the below is all from the pandoc output
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{amssymb,amsmath}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\makeatletter
\def\maxwidth{\ifdim\Gin@nat@width>\linewidth\linewidth\else\Gin@nat@width\fi}
\def\maxheight{\ifdim\Gin@nat@height>\textheight\textheight\else\Gin@nat@height\fi}
\makeatother
% Scale images if necessary, so that they will not overflow the page
% margins by default, and it is still possible to overwrite the defaults
% using explicit options in \includegraphics[width, height, ...]{}
\setkeys{Gin}{width=\maxwidth,height=\maxheight,keepaspectratio}

\usepackage{ifxetex,ifluatex}
\usepackage{fixltx2e} % provides \textsubscript
\ifnum 0\ifxetex 1\fi\ifluatex 1\fi=0 % if pdftex
  \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
  \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\else % if luatex or xelatex
  \ifxetex
    \usepackage{mathspec}
    \usepackage{xltxtra,xunicode}
  \else
    \usepackage{fontspec}
  \fi
  \defaultfontfeatures{Mapping=tex-text,Scale=MatchLowercase}
  \newcommand{\euro}{€}
\fi
% use upquote if available, for straight quotes in verbatim environments
\IfFileExists{upquote.sty}{\usepackage{upquote}}{}
% use microtype if available
\IfFileExists{microtype.sty}{%
\usepackage{microtype}
\UseMicrotypeSet[protrusion]{basicmath} % disable protrusion for tt fonts
}{}
\ifxetex
  \usepackage[setpagesize=false, % page size defined by xetex
              unicode=false, % unicode breaks when used with xetex
              xetex]{hyperref}
\else
  \usepackage[unicode=true]{hyperref}
\fi
%
% fill in title and author here
\hypersetup{breaklinks=true,
            bookmarks=true,
            pdfauthor={},
            pdftitle={},
            colorlinks=true,
            citecolor=blue,
            urlcolor=blue,
            linkcolor=magenta,
            pdfborder={0 0 0}}
\urlstyle{same}  % don't use monospace font for urls
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
\setlength{\parskip}{.4em plus .2em minus .1em}
\setlength{\emergencystretch}{3em}  % prevent overfull lines
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{0}

%put title, author, date here
\title{}
\author{}
\date{}

% set spacing
% \doublespace
\onehalfspace

% try to avoid widows and orphans
\usepackage[all]{nowidow}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\tableofcontents

% if you don't need headers on the first page
% but in that case, you probably don't want the title or toc
%\thispagestyle{empty}

\include{name of content file without the tex extension}

\end{document}
