TeX Live documentation

After you obtain the TeX Live distribution, please read the documentation for TeX Live, which includes installation instructions for Unix and Windows. For MacOSX, we recommend installing MacTeX, which contains all of TeX Live (and more).

The TeX Live guide is available in several languages and formats:

• English documentation - HTML.
• English documentation - PDF.
• Other languages: Simplified Chinese, Czech/Slovak, French, German, Polish, Russian.

If you don't care to read documentation, and just want to install everything, try this quick Unix install recipe, and/or installation for Windows, and/or MacTeX for MacOSX.

Additional manuals

Online links to additional information and documentation for some of the basic components of the TeX system:
web2c - tds - pdftex - kpathsea - dvips.

Overviews of the TeX Live Installer (install-tl) and TeX Live Manager (tlmgr) are also available.

TeX Live also includes hundreds of manuals of all kinds (including all the above)—the documentation that the individual package and program authors have provided, mostly in the texmf*/doc subdirectories. The top-level doc.html file in the distribution has a comprehensive listing.

Supported systems

Binaries for the following systems are included in this year's release:

• alpha-linux (HP Alpha GNU/Linux)
• hppa-hpux (HP-UX)
• i386-cygwin (x86 Cygwin)
• i386-linux (x86 GNU/Linux)
• i386-netbsd (x86 NetBSD)
• i386-solaris (x86 Solaris)
• mips-irix (SGI IRIX)
• powerpc-aix (IBM RS/6000 AIX)
• powerpc-linux (PowerPC GNU/Linux)
• sparc-linux (Sparc GNU/Linux)
• sparc-solaris (Sun Sparc Solaris)
• universal-darwin (MacOSX for both PowerPC and x86; bash.dmg available for bootstrap)
• win32 (Windows 2000 and later)
• x86_64-linux (x86 64-bit GNU/Linux)

If you can help by providing binaries for systems not listed here, please see the TeX Live build information.

Translations for install-tl and tlmgr

As of 2008, the messages in the TeX Live installer and TeX Live Manager, when running in GUI mode only (we want to keep text mode as simple as possible), are available in various languages. If your language is not available and you want to help by providing a translation:

• Copy messages.pot to LL.po, where LL is your language code.
• If you want to be able to test, get the TL sources and put LL.po in your Master/tlpkg/translations/ directory.
• Translate the strings, either manually or using a PO editor. Instructions and tips for using poedit (a PO editor for Unix and Windows) with TeX Live are available in howto-translations.txt.
• To test, run install-tl -gui or install-tl -gui wizard. You can use the option -lang LL to test independently of the system LC_MESSAGES or Registry settings.
• When satisfied, email tex-live@tug.org with the new file.

Thanks.