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

• The LaTeX kernel itself (base)
• LaTeX team documentation (doc)
• Packages which must be available (required). These are
  • Essential tools (tools)
  • Core graphics and color support (graphics)
  • Key mathematics support (amsmath)

The master 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.

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.

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.

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}

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

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.

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. We strongly suggest raising suggestions on the LaTeX-L mailing list early.

You can subscribe to the LaTeX-L mailing list by sending mail to

[email protected]

with the body containing

subscribe LATEX-L <Your-First-Name> <Your-Second-Name>

The LaTeX kernel is developed by The LaTeX3 Project.

This README file is copyright 2019 The LaTeX Project.