TeX Live

TeX Live is the most extensive available TeX distribution.

TeX Live is sold on DVD- ROM ( TeX Collection ) or can be downloaded free from the Internet. Which is based on the TeX Directory Structure distribution of the TeX Users Group in collaboration with some local TeX user groups, such as with the German TeX User Group is assembled.

History

The project was originally founded by Sebastian Rahtz and is now run by Karl Berry.

TeX Live is being developed since 1996 and was originally directly from CD- ROM / DVD -ROM run - hence the name. Since 2010, the distribution can not be run directly from the DVD because the amount of data. Since all the installation files are compressed, an installation on hard disk or other mass storage devices is imperative. For portable use to TeX Live can be installed on USB sticks.

Since then, the distribution teTeX, which had previously been maintained in parallel with TeX Live by Thomas Esser, is no longer being developed, TeX Live is instead included in many Linux distributions.

Extent of distribution

TeX Live basically contains all the packages that are also available on the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network. Restrictions arise in individual cases for packages that are under any free license.

Since version 2008, the distribution has the tlmgr program has its own package manager; inter alia, can thus be added and updated by the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network also packages. An upgrade to a later version of TeX Live is currently not possible using the Package Manager.

Since 2009, the editor TeXworks and the language Asymptote be delivered to describe vector images.

Since the 2010 edition uses pdftex the package epstopdf to automatically convert EPS graphics to PDF format. In addition, can be processed with the new BibTeXu bibliographies in Unicode, and DVI files can be dvisvgm with the converter convert to SVG format.

The first time an experimental upgrade via a shell script was offered for Unix platforms for TeX Live 2011. The Literature Management beaver was included in the distribution. Since TeX Live 2012, the extension of pdfTeX and the driver dvips to deal with file size greater than 2 GB, dvips also embeds by default the 35 PostScript core fonts in the output file. In TeX Live 2013, there were changes to the directory structure. In addition, MetaPost now supports natively the output of PNG files and floating-point numbers; LuaTeX can process external PDF data.

MacTeX

For Mac OS X there is MacTeX, which still contains other utilities in addition to TeX Live, namely tlmgr own interface to the package manager, the TeX Live Utility, the editor TeXShop and BibDesk management literature. On the system are multiple versions of MacTeX installed can be changed by an entry in the System Preferences of Mac OS X between them.

TeX Live can also be installed via MacPorts.