Get LaTeX – Mac OS, Windows, Linux

TeX Distributions

If you ’ re new to TeX and LaTeX or good want an easy initiation, get a full TeX distribution. The TeX Users Group ( TUG ) has a list of celebrated distributions that are entirely, or least chiefly, free software .

Linux

Check your Linux distributions software source for a TeX distribution including LaTeX. You can besides install the stream TeX Live distribution immediately — -in fact this may be advisable as many Linux distributions entirely contain older versions of TeX Live, see Linux TeX Live package condition for details .

Mac OS

The MacTeX distribution contains everything you need, including a complete TeX system with LaTeX itself and editors to write documents .

Windows

Check out the MiKTeX or proTeXt or TeX Live distributions ; they contain a complete TeX system with LaTeX itself and editors to write documents.

Online

LaTeX on-line services like Papeeria, Overleaf, ShareLaTeX, Datazar, and LaTeX base offer the ability to edit, view and download LaTeX files and resulting PDFs .

CTAN

You can obtain LaTeX from CTAN, which is the primary source of distribution for LaTeX. In order for your download LaTeX to be of any use, you have to obtain and set up a TeX organization first. You can either install a TeX distribution ( see above ) or get a TeX system from CTAN. If you use a TeX distribution then it will include a interpretation of LaTeX so this will credibly make things easier for you ; but you may have a reason not to do this .

The LaTeX Git Repository

These days the LaTeX development sources are kept in a GitHub repository ( previously we used SVN ) .
Anyone can entree it and download the files, but submission is restricted to team members. The depository is located at hypertext transfer protocol : //github.com/latex3/latex2e and from that browser page you may explore the files, clone the depository or download the files in a .zip archive ( roughly 25Mb ) by using the appropriate buttons .
If you are conversant with Git you can besides clone the depository using the command line or your front-runner Git fontend tool, for example ,

git clone  https://github.com/latex3/latex2e.git

which needs about 50Mb of space. alternatively, you can do a subversion check from the instruction line, for example,

svn co https://github.com/latex3/latex2e.git/trunk

which will just checkout the current files. But be mindful that a SVN check of the form

svn co https://github.com/latex3/latex2e.git

will download all files including their history ( back to 2009 ) and amounts to roughly 1.4Gb so that is quite large .
note : If you had bookmarked the old SVN depository please update that bookmark to the new GIT depository as we have finally removed it .

A note on Git pull requests

Git repositories accompaniment distributed development and let people to provide transfer sets that are made available through so called pull requests, so that the maintainers of a program can “ pull the indicate changes ” into the chief repository .
While we appreciate contributions, we think that for the core LaTeX software pull requests are normally not a good approach ( unless the exchange has be already discussed and agreed upon ). The stability of LaTeX is very important and this means that changes to the kernel are inevitably very conservative. It besides means that a set of discussion has to happen before any changes are made. so if you do decide to post a pull request, please bear this in mind : we do appreciate ideas, but can not constantly integrate them into the kernel and it is quite probable that we reject updates made in this way .
If you want to discuss a potential contribution before ( or alternatively of ) making a pull request, we suggest you raise the topic first on the LATEX-L tilt or drop a line to the team.

Historic LaTeX

Ulrik Vieth has collected historic versions of LaTeX from LaTeX 2.0 for TeX 1.0 ( released on 11 December 1983 ) onwards. You can find them at ftp : //ftp.tug.org/historic/macros/latex-saildart/. There might even be some earlier versions. All files have been pulled from the SAILDART archive site at hypertext transfer protocol : //z.baumgart.org/ ( no long online ) which was based on archive tapes from SAIL at Stanford .
More historic material can be found at ftp : //ftp.tug.org/historic ( you may not be able to open this in all browsers — alternatively try on hypertext transfer protocol : //www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/historic/ ) .