TeX Live

TeX Live is intended to be a straightforward way to get up and running with the TeX document production system. It provides a comprehensive TeX system with binaries for most flavors of Unix, including GNU/Linux and macOS, and also Windows. It includes all the major TeX-related programs, macro packages, and fonts that are free software, including support for many languages around the world. Many Unix/GNU/Linux operating systems provide TeX Live via their own distributions and package managers.

• Concise instructions, per platform:
  • Unix/GNU/Linux
  • Windows
  • MacOS: MacTeX distribution
  Read the full manual about all the possibilities, including automated installations and using custom repositories.

• All the ways to acquire TeX Live:
  • download,
  • on DVD,
  • an ISO image or via torrent,
  • other methods.

• Documentation.
• Contact and mailing lists.
• Known issues and highlights of changes in the current release (details for LuaTeX, pdfTeX, XeTeX).

• Portable (USB and DVD) usage of TeX Live.
• Installing/updating packages after installation and full upgrade from previous years.

• TeX Live licensing, and integration with operating system distributions.
• Development source repository, and building the sources.
• How you can help.

• Current release: TeX Live 2021 is available over the Internet and (after production) on DVD. It was released on 1 April 2021, and ongoing updates are available.
• The GPG public key we use to sign our releases. (You can view the contents with gpg --show-keyring texlive.asc, or gpg --list-options show-keyring depending on your gpg version.)
• The TeX Live pretest of the next release is underway; additional testing is always appreciated.

Some starting points for actually using TeX are in this introduction to the TeX world.

By the way, if you prefer an alternative to TeX Live, the other major (free software) TeX distribution is MiKTeX, which also runs on GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Plan for TeX Live 2022:
15feb: candidate/final sources committed, test builds begin.
27feb: tlpretest starts, CTAN updates continue there and in tlnet.
10mar: code freeze for final build, major bug fixes only.
22mar: final updates from CTAN, final doc tweaks.
23mar: deliver TL image for TeX Collection packaging/testing.
1apr: deliver TeX Collection DVD image for manufacturing.
3apr: public release (also of MacTeX).
June?: delivery of DVDs to members.

TeX Live has been developed since 1996 by collaboration between the TeX user groups. TeX Live was originally perpetrated by Sebastian Rahtz. Present miscreants include Hironori Kitagawa, Hironobu Yamashita, Karl Berry, Luigi Scarso, Mojca Miklavec, Norbert Preining, Reinhard Kotucha, Siep Kroonenberg, Takuji Tanaka, and a cast of thousands.