tlmgr [option]... action [option]... [operand]...
tlmgr manages an existing TeX Live installation, both packages and configuration options. For information on initially downloading and installing TeX Live, see http://tug.org/texlive/acquire.html.
The most up-to-date version of this documentation (updated nightly from
the development sources) is available at
http://tug.org/texlive/tlmgr.html, along with procedures for updating
tlmgr itself and information about test versions.
TeX Live is organized into a few top-level schemes, each of which is defined as a different set of collections and packages, where a collection is a set of packages, and a package is what contains actual files. Schemes typically contain a mix of collections and packages, but each package is included in exactly one collection, no more and no less. Installation can be customized and managed at any level.
For the full documentation of TeX Live, see http://tug.org/texlive/doc.
After successfully installing TeX Live, here are a few common operations
with tlmgr:
tlmgr update --allMake your local TeX installation correspond to what is in the package repository (typically on CTAN).
tlmgr update --listReport what would be updated without actually updating anything.
tlmgr option repository http://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnetTell tlmgr to use a nearby CTAN mirror for future updates; useful if
you installed TeX Live from the DVD image.
tlmgr show pkgnameDisplay detailed information about pkgname, such as the installation status and description.
For all the capabilities and details of tlmgr, please see the
following voluminous information.
The following options to tlmgr are global options, not specific to
any action. All options, whether global or action-specific, can be
given at any place and in arbitrary order. The first non-option
argument will be the main action. In all cases, --option and
-option are equivalent, and an = is optional between an option
name and its value.
Specifies the package repository from which packages should be installed
or updated, overriding the default package repository found in the
installation's TeX Live Package Database (TLPDB, a file named
texlive.tlpdb). The documentation for install-tl has more details
about this (http://tug.org/texlive/doc/install-tl.html).
--repository changes the repository location only for the current
run; to make a permanent change, use option repository (see the
the option manpage action).
For backward compatibility and convenience, --location and --repo
are accepted as aliases for this option.
You can give this option together with an action to be brought directly into the respective screen of the GUI. For example, running
tlmgr --gui update
starts you directly at the update screen.
Normally the GUI tries to deduce your language from the environment (on
Windows via the registry, on Unix via LC_MESSAGES). If that fails you
can select a different language by giving this option a two-letter
(ISO 639-1) language code (with the exception for selecting simplified
or traditional Chinese). Currently supported (but not necessarily
completely translated) are:
English (en, default), Czech (cs), German (de), French (fr),
Italian (it), Dutch (nl), Polish (pl), Russian (ru), Slovak (sk),
Slovenian (sl), Serbian (sr), Vietnamese (vi), simplified Chinese (zh-cn),
and traditional Chinese (zh-tw).
In lieu of the normal output intended for human consumption, write to standard output in a fixed format more suitable for machine parsing. See the MACHINE-READABLE OUTPUT section below for details.
tlmgr logs all package actions (install, remove, update, failed
updates, failed restores) to a separate log file, by default
TEXMFSYSVAR/web2c/tlmgr.log. This option allows you to select a
different file for that. This is separate from normal logging; for
that, see the option -v below, and TeXLive::TLUtils.
This option makes tlmgr wait for user input before exiting. Useful on Windows to avoid command windows disappearing.
For net installs, activating this option makes tlmgr try to set up a persistent connection using the Net::LWP Perl module. This opens only one connection between your computer and the server per session and reuses it, instead of initiating a new download for each package.
This option is turned on by default, and tlmgr will fall back to using wget if this is not possible. If you want to disable usage of LWP and persistent connections, please use --no-persistent-downloads.
Suppress the execution of the execute actions as defined in the tlpsrc files. Only use at your own risk.
In GUI mode, this switch makes tlmgr report any missing, or more
likely untranslated, messages to standard error. Helpful for
translators to see what remains to be done.
The standard options for TeX Live programs are also accepted:
--help/-h/-?, --version, -q (no informational messages), -v
(debugging messages, can be repeated). For the details about these, see
the TeXLive::TLUtils documentation.
The --version option shows version information about the TeX Live
release and about the tlmgr script itself. If paired with -v,
revision number for the used TeX Live Perl modules are shown, too.
Gives this help information (same as --help).
Gives version information (same as --version).
If -v has been given the revisions of the used modules are reported, too.
Start the graphical user interface. See GUI below.
Install each pkg given on the command line. By default this installs all packages on which the given pkgs are dependent, also. Options:
Reinstall a package (including dependencies for collections) even if it seems to be already installed (i.e, is present in the TLPDB). This is useful to recover from accidental removal of files in the hierarchy.
When re-installing, only dependencies on normal packages are followed (not those of category Scheme or Collection).
Do not install dependencies. (By default, installing a package ensures that all dependencies of this package are fulfilled.)
When you install a package which ships binary files the respective
binary package will also be installed. That is, for a package foo,
the package foo.i386-linux will also be installed on an i386-linux
system. This switch suppresses this behavior, and also implies
--no-depends. Don't use it unless you are sure of what you are
doing.
Nothing is actually installed; instead, the actions to be performed are written to the terminal.
If updates to tlmgr itself (or other parts of the basic
infrastructure) are present, tlmgr will bail out and not perform the
installation unless this option is given. Not recommended.
Updates the packages given as arguments to the latest version available
at the installation source. Either --all or at least one pkg name
must be specified. Options:
Update all installed packages except for tlmgr itself. Thus, if
updates to tlmgr itself are present, this will simply give an error,
unless also the option --force or --self is given. (See below.)
In addition to updating the installed packages, during the update of a collection the local installation is (by default) synchronized to the status of the collection on the server, for both additions and removals.
This means that if a package has been removed on the server (and thus
has also been removed from the respective collection), tlmgr will
remove the package in the local installation. This is called
``auto-remove'' and is announced as such when using the option
--list. This auto-removal can be suppressed using the option
--no-auto-remove.
Analogously, if a package has been added to a collection on the server
that is also installed locally, it will be added to the local
installation. This is called ``auto-install'' and is announced as such
when using the option --list. This auto-installation can be
suppressed using the option --no-auto-install.
An exception to the collection dependency checks (including the
auto-installation of packages just mentioned) are those that have been
``forcibly removed'' by you, that is, you called tlmgr remove --force
on them. (See the remove action documentation.) To reinstall any
such forcibly removed packages use --reinstall-forcibly-removed.
If you want to exclude some packages from the current update run (e.g.,
due to a slow link), see the --exclude option below.
Update tlmgr itself (that is, the infrastructure packages) if updates
to it are present. On Windows this includes updates to the private Perl
interpreter shipped inside TeX Live.
If this option is given together with either --all or a list of
packages, then tlmgr will be updated first and, if this update
succeeds, the new version will be restarted to complete the rest of the
updates.
In short:
tlmgr update --self # update infrastructure only
tlmgr update --self --all # update infrastructure and all packages
tlmgr update --force --all # update all packages but *not* infrastructure
# ... this last at your own risk, not recommended!
Nothing is actually installed; instead, the actions to be performed are
written to the terminal. This is a more detailed report than --list.
Concisely list the packages which would be updated, newly installed, or
removed, without actually changing anything. If no package is given,
this acts like --list --all, otherwise it lists only updates to the
packages given as arguments (and its dependencies).
Exclude pkg from the update process. If this option is given more than once, its arguments accumulate.
An argument pkg excludes both the package pkg itself and all its related platform-specific packages pkg.ARCH. For example,
tlmgr update --all --exclude a2ping
will not update a2ping, a2ping.i386-linux, or
any other a2ping.ARCH package.
If this option specifies a package that would otherwise be a candidate
for auto-installation, auto-removal, or reinstallation of a forcibly
removed package, tlmgr quits with an error message. Excludes are not
supported in these circumstances.
Under normal circumstances tlmgr tries to remove packages which have
disappeared on the server, as described above under --all. This
option prevents any such removals, either for all packages (with
--all), or the given pkg names.
Under normal circumstances tlmgr will install packages which are new
on the server, as descrbed above under --all. This option prevents
any such automatic installation, either for all packages (with
--all), or the given pkg names.
Furthermore, after the tlmgr run using this has finished, the
packages that would have been auto-installed will be considered as
forcibly removed. So, if foobar is the only new package on the
server, then
tlmgr update --all --no-auto-install
is equivalent to
tlmgr update --all tlmgr remove --force foobar
Under normal circumstances tlmgr will not install packages that have
been forcibly removed by the user; that is, removed with remove
--force, or whose installation was prohibited by --no-auto-install
during an earlier update.
This option makes tlmgr ignore the forcible removals and re-install
all such packages. This can be used to completely synchronize an
installation with the server's idea of what is available:
tlmgr update --reinstall-forcibly-removed --all
These two options control the creation of backups of packages before
updating; that is, backup of packages as currently installed. If
neither of these options are given, no backup package will be saved. If
--backupdir is given and specifies a writable directory then a backup
will be made in that location. If only --backup is given, then a
backup will be made to the directory previously set via the option
action (see below). If both are given then a backup will be made to the
specified directory.
You can set options via the option action to automatically create
backups for all packages, and/or keep only a certain number of
backups. Please see the option action for details.
tlmgr always makes a temporary backup when updating packages, in case
of download or other failure during an update. In contrast, the purpose
of this --backup option is to allow you to save a persistent backup
in case the actual content of the update causes problems, e.g.,
introduces an incompatibility.
The restore action explains how to restore from a backup.
If you call for updating a package normally all depending packages will also be checked for updates and updated if necessary. This switch suppresses this behavior.
See above under install (and beware).
Force update of normal packages, without updating tlmgr itself
(unless the --self option is also given). Not recommended.
Also, update --list is still performed regardless of this option.
If the package on the server is older than the package already installed
(e.g., if the selected mirror is out of date), tlmgr does not
downgrade. Also, packages for uninstalled platforms are not installed.
If the --clean option is not specified, this action makes a backup of
the given packages, or all packages given --all. These backups are
saved to the value of --backupdir option if that is an existing and
writable directory; if --backupdir is not given, the backupdir
option setting in the TLPDB is used, if present. If both are missing,
no backups are made.
If the --clean option is specified, backups are cleaned (pruned)
instead of made. If the value for the --clean switch is not given,
the value of the autobackup option is used. If both are missing,
an error is issued. For the details of backup cleaning, see the
option action below.
Options:
The directory argument is required and must specify an existing directory where backups are to be placed.
Make a backup of all packages in the TeX Live installation. This will take quite a lot of space and time.
Instead of making backups, prune the backup directory of old backups, as explained above.
Nothing is actually backed up or removed; instead, the actions to be performed are written to the terminal.
Restore a package from a previously-made backup.
If --all is given, try to restore the latest revision of all
package backups found in the backup directory.
Otherwise, if neither pkg nor rev are given, list the available backup revisions for all packages.
With pkg given but no rev, list all available backup revisions of pkg.
With both pkg and rev, tries to restore the package from the specified backup.
Options:
Nothing is actually restored; instead, the actions to be performed are written to the terminal.
Specify the directory where the backups are to be found. If not given it will be taken from the configuration setting in the TLPDB.
Try to restore the latest revision of all package backups found in the backup directory. Additional non-option arguments (like pkg) are not allowed.
Remove each pkg specified. Removing a collection removes all package
dependencies (unless --no-depends is specified), but not any
collection dependencies of that collection. However, when removing a
package, dependencies are never removed. Options:
Do not remove dependent packages.
See above under install (and beware).
By default, removal of a package or collection that is a dependency of another collection or scheme is not allowed. With this option, the package will be removed unconditionally. Use with care.
A package that has been removed using the --force option because it
is still listed in an installed collection or scheme will not be
updated, and will be mentioned as forcibly removed in the output of
tlmgr update --list.
Nothing is actually removed; instead, the actions to be performed are written to the terminal.
The first form shows the global TeX Live settings currently saved in the
TLPDB with a short description and the key used for changing it in
paranthesis.
The second form acts like the first, but also shows options which can be defined but are not currently set to any value.
In the third form, if value is not given, the setting for key is displayed. If value is present, key is set to value.
Possible values for key are (but see tlmgr option showall for the definitive list):
repository (default package repository), formats (create formats at installation time), docfiles (install documentation files), srcfiles (install source files), backupdir (default directory for backups), autobackup (number of backups to keep). sys_bin (directory to which executables are linked by the path action) sys_man (directory to which man pages are linked by the path action) sys_info (directory to which Info files are linked by the path action)
One common use of option is to permanently change the installation to
get further updates from the Internet, after originally installing from
DVD. To do this, you can run
tlmgr option repository http://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet
The install-tl documentation has more information about the possible
values for repository.
To keep backward compatibility location can be used as alternative
name for repository.
The two options autobackup and backupdir determine defaults for
the update, backup and restore actions. These three actions
need a directory to write to or read from the backups. If
--backupdir is not specified on the command line, the backupdir
option value is used (if set).
The autobackup option (de)activates automatic generation of backups.
Its value is an integer. If the autobackup value is -1, no
backups are removed. If autobackup is 0 or more, it specifies the
number of backups to keep. Thus, backups are disabled if the value is
0. In the --clean mode of the backup action this option also
specifies the number to be kept.
To setup autobackup to -1 on the command line, use
tlmgr option autobackup infty
Or you can use:
tlmgr option -- autobackup -1
The -- avoids having the -1 treated as an option. (For most
programs, -- stops parsing for arguments at the point where it
appears; this is a general feature of option parsing.)
With only the conf, show general configuration information for TeX
Live, including active configuration files, path settings, and more.
This is like the texconfig conf call, but works on all supported
platforms.
With either texmf or tlmgr given in addition, shows all key/value
pairs (i.e., all settings) as saved in ROOT/texmf.cnf or the tlmgr
configuration file (see below), respectively.
If key is given in addition, shows the value of only that given key in the respective file.
If value is given in addition, key is set to value in the respective file. No error checking is done!
Practical application: if the execution of (some or all) system commands
via \write18 was left enabled during installation, you can disable
it afterwards:
tlmgr conf texmf shell_escape 0
WARNING: The general facility is here, but tinkering with settings in this way is very strongly discouraged. Again, no error checking is done, so any sort of breakage is possible.
With no arguments (tlmgr paper), shows the default paper size setting
for all known programs.
With one argument (e.g., tlmgr paper a4), sets the default for all
known programs to that paper size.
With a program given as the first argument and no paper size specified
(e.g., tlmgr dvips paper), shows the default paper size for that
program.
With a program given as the first argument and a paper size as the last
argument (e.g., tlmgr dvips paper a4), set the default for that
program to that paper size.
With a program given as the first argument and --list given as the
last argument (e.g., tlmgr dvips paper --list), shows all valid paper
sizes for that program. The first size shown is the default.
Incidentally, this syntax of having a specific program name before the
paper keyword may seem strange. It is inherited from the
longstanding texconfig script, which supports other configuration
settings for some programs, notably dvips. tlmgr does not support
those extra settings at present.
platform list lists the TeX Live names of all the platforms
(a.k.a. architectures), (i386-linux, ...) available at the package
repository.
platform add platform... adds the executables for each given platform
platform to the installation from the repository.
platform remove platform... removes the executables for each given
platform platform from the installation, but keeps the currently
running platform in any case.
arch is a synonym for platform.
Options:
Nothing is actually installed; instead, the actions to be performed are written to the terminal.
Print the TeX Live identifier for the detected platform
(hardware/operating system) combination to standard output, and exit.
--print-arch is a synonym.
By default searches the names, short and long descriptions of all locally installed packages for the given argument (interpreted as regexp). Options:
List all filenames containing what.
Search the TeX Live Database of the installation medium, instead of the local installation.
Display information about pkg: the name, category, installation status, short and long description. Searches in the remote installation source for the package if it is not locally installed.
It also displays the information taken from the TeX Catalogue (license, date, version), but note that there is a high probability that this information is slightly off due to timing issues.
If the option --list is given with a package, the list of contained
files is also shown, including those for platform-specific
dependencies. When given with schemes and collections, --list
outputs their dependencies in a similar way.
With no argument, lists all packages available at the package
repository, prefixing those already installed with i.
With the single word collections or schemes as the argument, lists
the request type.
With anything else as arguments, operates as the show action.
If the option --only-installed is given the installation source will
not be used and only locally installed packages, collections, or schemes
are listed.
Executes one (or all) check(s) on the consistency of the installation.
Checks that all files listed in the TeX Live Database (texlive.tlpdb)
are actually present, and lists those missing.
Lists those packages which occur as dependencies in an installed collections, but are themselves not installed, and those packages that are not contained in any collection.
If you call tlmgr check collections this test will be carried out
instead since former versions for tlmgr called it that way.
Check that the files referred to by execute directives in the TeX
Live Database are present.
List those filenames that are occurring more than one time in the runfiles.
Options:
Use the output of svn status instead of listing the files; for
checking the TL development repository.
On Unix adds or removes symlinks for binaries, man pages, and info pages in the directories specified by the respective options (see above).
On Windows, the registry part where the binary directory is added or removed is determined in the following way:
If the user has admin rights, and the option --w32mode is not given,
the setting w32_multi_user determines the location (i.e., if it is
on then the system path, otherwise the user path is changed).
If the user has admin rights, and the option --w32mode is given, this
option determines the path to be adjusted.
If the user does not have admin rights, and the option --w32mode
is not given, and the setting w32_multi_user is off, the user path
is changed, while if the setting w32_multi_user is on, a warning is
issued that the caller does not have enough privileges.
If the user does not have admin rights, and the option --w32mode
is given, it must be user and the user path will be adjusted. If a
user without admin rights uses the option --w32mode admin a warning
is issued that the caller does not have enough provileges.
Carry out the postaction shortcut, fileassoc, or script given
as the second required argument in install or remove mode (which is the
first required argument), for either the packages given on the command
line, or for all if --all is given.
The option --w32mode is user all actions will only carried out in
the user accessible parts of the registry/filesystem, while the admin
mode selects the system wide parts of the registry for the file
associations. Note that if you do not have enough permissions using
--w32mode=admin will not succeed.
For the postaction fileassoc the mode can be set with
--fileassocmode. If it is set to 1, only new assocations are added,
if it is set to 2, all associations are set to the TeX Live programs.
Uninstalls the entire TeX Live installation. Options:
Do not ask for confirmation, remove immediately.
The generate action overwrites any manual changes made in the
respective files: it recreates them from scratch.
For fmtutil and the language files, this is normal, and both the TeX
Live installer and tlmgr routinely call generate for them.
For updmap, however, tlmgr does not use
generate, because the result would be to disable all maps which have
been manually installed via updmap-sys --enable, e.g., for
proprietary or local fonts. The generate action only incorporates
the changes in the --localcfg file mentioned below. Furthermore,
tlmgr updates and maintains the final updmap.cfg in
TEXMFSYSCONFIG (while the other files are in TEXMFSYSVAR), because
that is the location that updmap-sys (via tcfmgr) uses.
Notwithstanding the above, if you only use the fonts and font packages
within TeX Live, and maintain your local fonts (if any) using
updmap-local.cfg, there is nothing wrong with using generate
updmap. Indeed, we use it ourselves to generate the updmap.cfg file
in the live source repository.
In more detail: generate remakes any of the five config files
language.dat, language.def, language.dat.lua, fmtutil.cnf,
and updmap.cfg from the information present in the local TLPDB, plus
locally-maintained files.
The locally-maintained files are language-local.dat,
language-local.def, language-local.dat.lua, fmtutil-local.cnf,
or updmap-local.cfg, searched for in TEXMFLOCAL in the respective
directories. If they are present, the final file is made by starting
with the main file, omitting any entries that the local file specifies
to be disabled, and finally appending the local file.
Local files specify entries to be disabled with a comment line like this:
#!NAME %!NAME --!NAME
where fmtutil.cnf and updmap.cfg use #, language.dat and
language.def use %, and language.dat.lua use --. In any
case, the name is the respective format name, map file name (include
the .map extension), or hyphenation pattern identifier. Examples:
#!pdflatex #!lm.map %!german --!usenglishmax
(Of course, you're not likely to actually want to disable those particular items. They're just examples.)
After such a disabling line, the local file can include another entry for the same item, if a different definition is desired. In general, except for the special disabling lines, the local files follow the same syntax as the master files.
The form generate language recreates both the language.dat, the
language.def and the language.dat.luafiles, while the forms with
extension recreates only the given language file.
Special consideration for updmap.cfg: in addition to font map files,
this file specifies the setting of five options: dvipsPreferOutline,
LW35, dvipsDownloadBase35, pdftexDownloadBase14, and
dvipdfmDownloadBase14. The defaults for these as set in
updmap-hdr.cfg are usually fine. If you want to change them, you can
include changed settings for any or all of these five options in your
updmap-local.cfg file and they will be respected by generate
updmap, for example:
dvipsDownloadBase35 true
Options:
specifies the output file (defaults to the respective location in
TEXMFSYSVAR for language* and fmtutil, and TEXMFSYSCONFIG
for updmap). If --dest is given to generate language, it serves
as a basename onto which .dat will be appended for the name of the
language.dat output file, .def will be
appended to the value for the name of the language.def output file,
and .dat.lua to the name of the language.dat.lua file. (This is
just to avoid overwriting; if you want a specific name for each output
file, we recommend invoking tlmgr twice.)
specifies the (optional) local additions (defaults to the respective
location in TEXMFLOCAL).
tells tlmgr to run necessary programs after config files have been
regenerated. These are: updmap-sys after generate updmap,
fmtutil-sys --all after generate fmtutil,
fmtutil-sys --byhyphen .../language.dat after generate language.dat,
and
fmtutil-sys --byhyphen .../language.def after generate language.def.
These subsequent calls cause the newly-generated files to actually take effect. This is not done by default since those calls are lengthy processes and one might want to made several related changes in succession before invoking these programs.
The respective locations are as follows:
tex/generic/config/language.dat (and language-local.dat); tex/generic/config/language.def (and language-local.def); tex/generic/config/language.dat.lua (and language-local.dat.lua); web2c/fmtutil.cnf (and fmtutil-local.cnf); web2c/updmap.cfg (and updmap-local.cfg).
Final repetition: as explained above, tlmgr does not use the
equivalent of generate updmap for map files. Therefore, if you want
to make use of updmap-local.cfg, you need to run tlmgr generate
updmap yourself. After that, network updates and your local changes
should be merged.
A small subset of the command line options can be set in a config
file for tlmgr which resides in TEXMFVAR/tlmgr/config. Note
that it is not TEXMFSYSVAR so the file is specific to a single
user. By default thus the config file is in ~/.texlive2010/tlmgr/config.
Format of this file is: empty lines and lines starting with # are ignored. All other lines must look like
key = value
where the allowed keys are gui_expertmode and persistent-downloads.
The values can only be 0 or 1 for those settings.
persistent-downloads corresponds to the respective
command line options of tlmgr. gui_expertmode switches between
the full GUI and a simplified with only the important and mostly used
settings.
The graphical user interface for tlmgr needs Perl/TK being installed.
For Windows the necessary modules are shipped within TeX Live, for
all other (i.e., Unix-based) systems Perl/Tk (as well as perl of course)
has to be installed.
When started with tlmgr gui the graphical user interface will be shown.
The main window contains a menu bar, the main display, and a status area
where messages normally shown on the console are displayed.
Within the main display there are three main parts: The Display configuration, the list of packages, and the buttons for actions. In addition to these three on the top right there is some text showing the currently loaded repository (this text also acts as button and will load the default repository).
The following entries can be found in the menu bar:
Provides access to load various repositories (the default as specified
in the texlive database, the default network repository, if given
the repository specified on the command line, and an arbitrary other one.
Furthermore is allows to quit tlmgr.
Provides access to three groups of options, General (for almost all options), Paper (configuration of default paper sizes), Platforms (only on Unix, configuration of the supported/installed platforms), as well as some toggles to turn on and off various options.
There is also a toggle for Expert options which defaults to on. If
you turn this off the next time you start the GUI a simplified screen
will be shown that exhibits only the most important and necessary
functionality. This setting is saved in the configuration file of
tlmgr, see CONFIGURATION FILE for details.
Provides access to a variety of items, such as updating the filename
database (aka ls-R, mktexlsr, texhash), rebuilding of all formats
(fmtutil-sys --all), updating the font map database (updmap-sys),
and handling of symbolic links in system directories (only Unix),
restoring backups of packages, as well as removal of the full TeX Live
installation (only Unix).
Provides access to the manual and other basic information on the installed version, authors, license.
The main display lists all packages, installed and, if a repository is loaded, also those that are available but not installed.
Each line of the package list contains of the following items:
used for selecting packages, some of the action buttons (see below) will work only on the selected packages.
that is the name of the package as given in the database.
If the package is installed the revision of the installed package will be shown. If there is a catalogue version given in the database for this package, it will be shown in parenthesis.
If a repository has been loaded the revision of the package in the repository (if present) is shown. As with the local variant, if a catalogue version is provided it will be displayed.
The short description (or title) is shown.
Double clicking on one of the lines pops up an informational window with further details, the long description, included files, etc.
Above the list of package there are options to configure the list of packages to be shown. Changing any of them will automatically update the list of packages. The different display configurations are:
allows selecting to show all, only the installed, only those packages that are not installed, or only those with packages available.
allows to select which categories are shown.
allows searching for a specific pattern. This uses the same algorithm
as tlmgr search, i.e., searches in the title, short and long
descriptions.
this allows to restrict the list of packages to those selected, not selected, or all (selected means that the checkbox in the beginning of the line of a package is selected).
to the right there are three buttons, one to select all packages, one to select none (deselect all), and one to reset all filters to the defaults, i.e., show all available.
Below the list of packages there are five buttons:
this calls tlmgr update --all internally, i.e., tries to update all
available packages.
Below this button there is a toggle that allows reinstallation of previously removed packages.
The following four buttons only work on the selected packages, i.e., those where the checkbutton at the beginning of the line is ticked.
only update the selcted packages
install the selected packages, acts like tlmgr install, i.e., also
installs dependencies. This installing a collection will install
all depending packages, too.
removes the selected packages, acts like tlmgr remove, i.e., it will
also remove dependencies of collections (but not dependencies of normal
packages).
makes a backup of the selected packages, acts like tlmgr backup. This
action needs the option backupdir set (see Options -> General).
Finally, the status area at the bottom of the window gives additional information what is going on.
Given the --machine-readable option, tlmgr writes to stdout in the
fixed line-oriented format described here, and the usual informational
messages for human consumption are written to stderr (normally they are
written to stdout). The idea is that a program can get all the
information it needs by reading stdout.
Currently this option only applies to the update, the install, and the option actions.
The output format is as follows:
fieldname "\t" value ... "end-of-header" pkgname status localrev serverrev size runtim esttot ... "end-of-updates" other output from post actions, not in machine readable form
The header section currently has two fields: location-url (the
repository source from which updates are being drawn), and
total-bytes (the total number of bytes to be downloaded).
The localrev and serverrev fields for each package are the revision numbers in the local installation and server repository, respectively. The size field is the number of bytes to be downloaded, i.e., the size of the compressed tar file for a network installation, not the unpacked size. The runtim and esttot fields are only present for updated and auto-install packages, and contain the currently passed time since start of installation/updates and the estimated total time.
Line endings may be either LF or CRLF depending on the current platform.
location-url locationThe location may be a url (including file:///foo/bar/...), or a
directory name (/foo/bar). It is the package repository from which
the new package information was drawn.
total-bytes countThe count is simply a decimal number, the sum of the sizes of all the packages that need updating or installing (which are listed subseqently).
Then comes a line with only the literal string end-of-header.
Each following line until a line with literal string end-of-updates
reports on one package. The fields on
each line are separated by a tab. Here are the fields.
The TeX Live package identifier, with a possible platform suffix for
executables. For instance, pdftex and pdftex.i386-linux are given
as two separate packages, one on each line.
The status of the package update. One character, as follows:
dThe package was removed on the server.
fThe package was removed in the local installation, even though a
collection depended on it. (E.g., the user ran tlmgr remove
--force.)
uNormal update is needed.
rReversed non-update: the locally-installed version is newer than the version on the server.
aAutomatically-determined need for installation, the package is new on the server and is (most probably) part of an installed collection.
iPackage will be installed and isn't present in the local installation (action install).
IPackage is already present but will be reinstalled (action install).
The revision number of the installed package, or - if it is not
present locally.
The revision number of the package on the server, or - if it is not
present on the server.
The size in bytes of the package on the server. The sum of all the
package sizes is given in the total-bytes header field mentioned above.
The run time since start of installations or updates.
The estimated total time.
The output format is as follows:
key "\t" value
If a value is not saved in the database the string (not set) is shown.
If you are developing a program that uses this output, and find that changes would be helpful, do not hesitate to write the mailing list.
This script and its documentation were written for the TeX Live distribution (http://tug.org/texlive) and both are licensed under the GNU General Public License Version 2 or later.