The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network
The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) is the central place for
all kinds of material around TeX. CTAN has currently
6669 packages.
3024 contributors have
contributed to it. Most of the packages are free and can be downloaded and
used immediately.
Announcements on CTAN-announce
You can see what's new and even get informed about new or
updated packages on CTAN.
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Activity on CTAN
An active TeX community takes care that CTAN is updated and extended
regularly.
CTAN receives usually more than 100 uploads per month.
Search on CTAN
The contents of CTAN can be searched with full-text search.
This search considers the description, the documentation, and
the contributors.
If you want to have finer control on the parameters of the
search you can use the advanced search
form instead.
Browse CTAN
This Web interface to CTAN provides a view on the directories
and files in the archive. The files and some directories as a
whole can be immediately be downloaded. You can immediately go
to the
Contribute to CTAN
CTAN lives from the contributions of software and package contributors.
Thus you are strongly encouraged to submit your contribution to the
TeX world to CTAN. You can use a Web form to upload your
contribution:
Background of CTAN
If you are interested in the background of the Comprehensive
TeX Archive Network you can read more on
CTAN on DVD
The contents of CTAN and ready to run TeX systems can be obtained
on DVD.
The DVD is distributed to the members of many
TeX user groups.
Consider becoming a member of a user group if you want to receive it.
TeX
TeX is a typesetting program designed for high-quality composition of
material that contains a lot of mathematical and technical expressions.
It has been adopted by many authors and publishers who generate
technical books and papers. It was created by
Professor Donald
E.Knuth of Stanford University, originally for preparation
of his book series
“The
Art of Computer Programming”. TeX has been made freely
available by Knuth.
From these origins a whole eco-system of distributions, macro packages,
and supporting programs has arisen.
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Download a TeX System
CTAN provides complete ready-to run TeX systems for various
platforms:
- TeX Live a
cross-platform TeX system. It includes support for most
Unix-like systems, including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X,
and Windows.
- MacTeX an easy to
install TeX system for Mac OS X, based on TeX Live.
It also includes a native Mac installer, the TeXShop
front-end, and additional Mac-specific tools.
more