CTAN snapshot on TeX Collection DVD
by DANTE e.V., and TUG

The DVD contains a nearly complete mirror of the "Comprehensive TeX Archive Network" (CTAN). CTAN is a network of many servers containing a large collection of TeX software. Here you will find complete TeX systems for various operating systems, macro packages like LaTeX, and utilities and tools around TeX.

The CTAN backbone consists of the servers

whose contents will be mirrored to many other servers. From http://mirror.ctan.org/ you will be redirected to a server close to your location. The snapshot was produced in June 2013 from ftp.dante.de by DANTE, Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung TeX e.V.

CTAN is a collection of software for different purposes and operating systems, therefore there is no "CTAN installation program". A complete installation of this mirror is not necessary. This readme is an introduction into the structure of CTAN, to help with selecting the correct components.

Likewise, there is no single licensing scheme for the files included here; in particular, it's definitely not allowed to redistribute the contents as-is without permission from some authors. See the LICENSE.CTAN file and the notes at the nonfree item below.

Contents of CTAN snapshot:

ctan/biblio
Systems for maintaining and presenting bibliographies within documents typeset using TeX
ctan/digests
Collections of TeX mailing list digests, TeX-related "electronic magazines", indexes, and of printed publications
ctan/dviware
Printer drivers and previewers for .dvi files produced by TeX. Most TeX systems install these for a variety of standard printers automatically.
ctan/fonts
Fonts written in Metafont, and support for using fonts from other sources (e.g., those in Adobe Type 1 format)
ctan/graphics
Systems and TeX macros for producing graphics
ctan/help
FAQs and similar direct assistance, for example the TeX catalogue (see the ctan/help/Catalogue/catalogue.html)
ctan/indexing
Systems for maintaining and presenting indexes of documents typeset using TeX
ctan/info
Manuals and extended how-to information; errata and examples for TeX-related publications, collections of project (e.g., LaTeX and NTS) documents, etc.
In particular, the directory ctan/info/lshort contains various translations of the "Short introduction to LaTeX".
ctan/language
Support for various languages; hyphenation patterns
ctan/macros
TeX macros; several directories have significant subtrees:
ctan/macros/context:
The ConTeXt distribution
ctan/macros/generic:
Macros that work in several environments
ctan/macros/latex:
The LaTeX distribution (ctan/macros/latex/base and macros/latex/required) and contributed matter (ctan/macros/latex/contrib)
ctan/macros/plain:
Donald Knuth's example macro set and contributed material
ctan/nonfree
Material which is not freely-usable (shareware, or of restricted usage, such as no-commercial or no-military use, or may not be included in commercial distributions). Users of the archive should check that they are entitled to use material downloaded from the ctan/nonfree/ tree. (The creators of this snapshot obtained specific permission from authors where necessary.)
Subdirectories follow the same scheme as the main CTAN tree
ctan/support
TeX support programs and the like (converter, spell checker, etc.)
ctan/systems
Complete TeX systems for Mac, Unix and MS Windows.
ctan/tds
The "TeX Directory Structure" standard
ctan/usergrps
Information supplied by the TeX user groups (the English FAQ can be found in ctan/usergrps/uktug/faq).
ctan/web
Literate Programming tools and systems

List of TeX software for popular operating systems:

MS Windows
TeX software for Windows is located in ctan/systems/win32.
Free TeX systems:
MiKTeX: because MiKTeX is a part of proTeXt we excised it from the CTAN part. Just use the proTeXt installation program. Ditto TeX Live.
Shareware:
BaKoMa: ctan/nonfree/systems/win32/bakoma/

MiKTeX consists of a set of command line driven programs. Several GUIs exist which support MiKTeX, e.g.:

Free GUIs:
TeXworks: included in MiKTeX and TeX Live
TeXnicCenter: ctan/systems/win32/TeXnicCenter
winshell: ctan/systems/win32/winshell
Shareware:
WinEdt: ctan/nonfree/systems/win32/winedt
GNU/Linux/Unix
The TeX Collection DVD contains TeX Live, a complete TeX system for GNU/Linux/Unix, as well as MacOSX and Windows, in the directory texlive.
MacOSX
The TeX Collection DVD contains MacTeX for MacOSX; it builds on the full TeX Live with some Mac-specific tools and features.
Macintosh
OS/2
MS DOS
Atari
Amiga
Due to space constraints we left out the software for those systems.

Some technical remarks:

In its root directory the DVD contains a file FILES.DVD with a listing of all files on the DVD. Additionally there is a file ctan/FILES.ORI which contains a complete directory, listing the complete contents of CTAN.

The DVD was prepared under Ubuntu Linux using the programs mkisofs and growisofs. The DVD uses the ISO 9660 file system with Rock Ridge and Joliet extensions. Thus, the majority of computers running under Unix or Windows should be able to display long filenames.

Computers running under operating systems not supporting Rock Ridge or Joliet extensions for DVD will only display 8.3 file names. Each directory contains a file TRANS.TBL that relates the short file names to the long ones. (This file will not usually be visible using Windows).

All text files on the DVD use the UNIX style line endings (LF). This might cause problems with some editors under operating systems using different line end conventions. One possible solution is to use the Info-ZIP programs by compressing a file with "zip" and uncompressing it with "unzip -a" where the proper line endings for the used operation system are automatically produced. Info-ZIP's software (Zip, UnZip and related utilities) is free and can be obtained as source code or executables from Internet/WWW sites, including http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/.

For those preferring a graphical frontend, the freeware Filzip could be used. Filzip is available from ctan/tools/zip/filzip or can be downloaded from the Internet http://www.filzip.com/en/index.html.

The DVD was produced in cooperation of TUG (TeX Users Group), USA, and DANTE, Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung TeX e.V., Heidelberg, Germany. We hope that all members of DANTE e.V., of various international TeX user groups, and all others who are interested in TeX will find this snapshot of the CTAN archive useful.

Involved in the preparation of the CTAN snapshot were:

For DANTE e.V.:

Acknowledgments:

We'd like to thank Walter Schmidt and Thomas Neumann for their help with the German version of this readme.