The LaTeX2e Kernel Code Repository

Overview

Important notice: This repository holds the unpackaged sources of LaTeX2e as well as code under development in various branches. For this reason it is only of interest to a small number of developers in this form and building a working version from the sources is a non-trivial exercise.

The normal way to obtain LaTeX is therefore not to get it from this repository, but through the packaged version available from https://ctan.org and automatically distributed as part of major TeX distributions such as TeXLive, MacTeX or MiKTeX.

This repository hosts development of the core LaTeX distribution, which comprises:

• The LaTeX kernel itself (base)
• LaTeX team documentation (doc)
• Bundles which must be available (required). These are
  • Essential tools (tools)
  • Core graphics and color support (graphics)
  • Key mathematics support (amsmath)
  • First aid for LaTeX (firstaid)
  • LaTeX laboratory (latex-lab)

The main public Git repository is hosted on GitHub.

Note that Babel moved to its own repository in 2019: GitHub; any issues related to Babel should be reported there.

From 2020 onwards LaTeX includes the L3 programming layer as part of the format. The code for this layer is hosted in its own repository: GitHub; any issues directly related to commands from that layer should preferably be reported there.

LaTeX Version number

The LaTeX version is defined in the file ltvers.dtx in the two commands \fmtversion (the main version) and \patch@level (the patch level). A negative patch level indicates a pretest version.

Each component of the core distribution contains a README file which is tagged with the appropriate release string prior to upload to CTAN.

Issues

Only issues specifically related to these components should be logged with the team on GitHub. The LaTeX ecosystem is large, and there are many (thousands) of additional packages not maintained by us: issues related to the use of those need to be reported to the relevant maintainers because we are usually unable to help in that case.

To help you making the right decision where to report an issue we ask to start your minimal example file showing the problem always with

\RequirePackage{latexbug}

Please look at the report generated from latexbug and if it indicates that you are using packages not maintained by the LaTeX Project check if your problem is still present after removing them. If so contact the maintainers of these third-party packages and file a bug report with them.

More details on creating issue reports for the core LaTeX distribution are given in our CONTRIBUTING guide.

Support

We are unable to provide advice/support here: community sites such as TeX-LaTeX StackExchange and The LaTeX Community are available for general help. See also the help pages on our website for further suggestions.

Code fixes

Changes to the core LaTeX distribution have to be approached bearing in mind the importance of maintaining stability. This means that all changes have to be carefully weighed up, balancing the issues addressed by a change with the effects on existing documents.

Development team

The LaTeX kernel is developed by The LaTeX Project.

Copyright

This README file is

Copyright (C) 2019-2023 The LaTeX Project