CTAN CD ROM Set by DANTE e.V. and TUG

This set of 5 CD ROMs is a nearly complete mirror of the "Comprehensive TeX Archive Network" (CTAN). CTAN is a set of Internet servers worldwide containing a collection of TeX software. Here you will find complete TeX systems for various operating systems, macro packages like LaTeX, and utilities and tools related to TeX.

The CTAN backbone consists of ftp servers

This set of CD ROMs was produced in November 2004 from ftp.dante.de by DANTE (Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung TeX e.V.) and TUG (TeX Users Group).

CTAN is a collection of software for different purposes and operating systems, therefore these CD ROMs do not contain a "CTAN installation program". A complete installation of this mirror is not necessary. This readme is an introduction into the structure of CTAN, to help select the correct components.

Contents of the CD set:

CD1

language
Support for various languages, including hyphenation patterns
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 nonfree/ tree.
Subdirectories follow the same scheme as all other parts of CTAN
web
Literate Programming tools and systems

CD2

fonts
Fonts available for use with TeX, written in Metafont, Adobe Type 1 format, etc.
graphics
Systems and TeX macros for producing graphics
tds
The "TeX Directory Structure" standard

CD3

biblio
Systems for maintaining and presenting bibliographies within documents typeset using TeX
help
FAQs and similar direct assistance, for example the TeX FAQ is in help/uk-tex-faq, and the TeX catalogue in help/Catalogue/catalogue.html
systems
TeX systems; organised by operating environment; Mac software is on CD4
usergrps
Information supplied by TeX User Groups (the english FAQ can be found in usergrps/uktug/faq).

CD4

dviware
Printer drivers and previewers for .dvi files produced by TeX. Most TeX systems install these for a variety of standard printers automatically.
indexing
Systems for maintaining and presenting indexes of documents typeset using TeX
support
TeX support software (converters, spell checkers, etc.)
systems/mac
TeX systems for Macs

CD5

info
Manuals and extended how-to information; errata and examples for TeX-related publications, collections of project (e.g., LaTeX and NTS) documents, etc.
The directory info/lshort contains various translations of the "Short introduction to LaTeX".
macros
TeX macros; several directories have significant sub-trees:
macros/context:
The ConTeXt distribution
macros/generic:
Macros that work in several environments
macros/latex:
The LaTeX distribution (macros/latex/base and macros/latex/required) and contributed matter (macros/latex/contrib)
macros/plain:
Donald Knuth's example macro set and contributed material
tools
Tools of use for the archive maintainers (including mirrors of the source of the compression tools the archives use)

List of TeX software for popular operating systems:

MS Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP
TeX software for Windows is located on CD3 in systems/win32 and on CD1 in nonfree/systems/win32. In addition, MiKTeX is part of proTeXt and fpTeX is part of TeX Live (both available separately).

Shareware:
BaKoMa: CD1:nonfree/systems/win32/bakoma/

MiKTeX and fpTeX are command line driven programs. Several GUIs exist for these TeX systems, e.g.:

Free GUIs:
TeXnicCenter: CD3:systems/win32/TeXnicCenter
winshell: CD3:systems/win32/winshell
Shareware:
WinEdt: CD1:nonfree/systems/win32/winedt

It is very useful to have a PostScript interpreter (Ghostscript, GSView) installed.

Unix/Linux
teTeX: CD3:systems/unix/teTeX-beta
VTeX (only for Linux/Solaris): CD3:systems/vtex
Macintosh
CMacTeX (Shareware): CD1:nonfree/systems/mac/cmactex
OzTeX (Shareware, for members of TUG already paid): CD1:nonfree/systems/mac/oztex
OzTeX-German (Shareware, for members of DANTE e.V. already paid): CD1:nonfree/systems/mac/oztex-german
OS/2
TeX systems:
VTeX: CD3:systems/vtex
GUI:
epmtfe: CD3:systems/os2/epmtfe
PostScript interpreter:
Ghostscript: CD1:nonfree/support/ghostscript/AFPL/gs833/gs833os2.zip
GSView: CD1:nonfree/support/ghostscript/ghostgum/gsv46os2.zip
MS DOS
TeX-Systems:
emtex: CD3:systems/msdos/emtex
dvips für emtex: CD3:systems/os2/dviware/dvips (also runs under MS DOS)
djgpp (web2c 7.2): CD3:systems/msdos/djgpp
GUI:
TeXshell: CD3:systems/msdos/texshell

Some technical remarks:

Each CD ROM has a file FILES.CD with a directory of all CD ROMs. The file FILES.ORI on the first CD ROM (CTAN-1) contains a complete directory, listing the complete contents of CTAN.

CTAN contains approximately 6 GB of data. For this reason, some parts had to be compressed or left out.

Some directory trees were compressed using Info-ZIP. Info-ZIP's software (Zip, UnZip and related utilities) is free and can be obtained as source code or executables from many Internet sites, including http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/ and from the directory tools/zip/info-zip on CD4.

The CD ROMs were made under FreeBSD using the programs mkisofs and burncd. The CD ROMs use 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.

Computer running under operating systems not supporting Rock Ridge or Joliet extensions for CD ROMs 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 be visible on some Windows systems.)

All text files on the CD ROMs use the UNIX style line endings (LF). This can 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 "unzip" and uncompressing it with "unzip -a" where the proper line endings for the used operation system are automatically produced.

The CD ROM set was produced in cooperation of DANTE, Deutschsprachige Anwendervereinigung TeX e.V., Heidelberg, Germany and the TeX Users Group, Portland, Oregon, USA. We hope that all members of the TeX users' groups and any others who are interested in TeX will find this CD ROM set useful.

Involved in the preparation of the CD set were:

For DANTE e.V.:

For TUG: