Copy template.tex and change the content to your liking.
For compiling, you can use a tool like rubber...
rubber -m pdftex <input>.tex
Or you can use a tool like pdflatex or xelatex directly.
pdflatex <input>.tex
Keep in mind that you may have to call pdflatex multiple times for everything
to be correct, that's why I usually prefer wrapper scripts like rubber.