Creating a package of custom-made commands

Question

I tend to use the \mathbb{...} command a lot, so I have made some commands to ease the amount of typing I have to do when I use LaTeX:

\newcommand{\R}{\ensuremath{\mathbb{R}}}
\newcommand{\C}{\ensuremath{\mathbb{C}}}
\newcommand{\Z}{\ensuremath{\mathbb{Z}}}
\newcommand{\Q}{\mathbb{Q}}
\newcommand{\N}{\mathbb{N}}
\newcommand{\F}{\mathbb{F}}
\newcommand{\W}{\mathbb{W}}

Up until this point, I have been simply copying and pasting these lines each time I begin working with a new file. What is the recommended way of importing these lines from say, a custom-made package? Is this generally recommended (i.e. making shortcuts like this)?

I'm currently using TexLive on Mac OS X.

Answer 1

A custom-made package is much easier than it sounds. Make a new file called, for example, alexmath.sty, which contains:

\ProvidesPackage{alexmath}
\newcommand{\R}{\ensuremath{\mathbb{R}}}
\newcommand{\C}{\ensuremath{\mathbb{C}}}
\newcommand{\Z}{\ensuremath{\mathbb{Z}}}
\newcommand{\Q}{\mathbb{Q}}
\newcommand{\N}{\mathbb{N}}
\newcommand{\F}{\mathbb{F}}
\newcommand{\W}{\mathbb{W}}

and simply use it with \usepackage{alexmath}.

That's it, you've made a custom package. It's not really clean or documented enough to be distributed to the community, but it's really enough for your needs. You can even install it in your local system TeX directories so you don't need to copy it in all your source directories.