TeX Live availability
TeX Live is available for download now.
You can acquire TeX Live in many ways. If you have a reasonable Internet connection, we recommend the first:
- Installing TeX Live over the Internet (recommended, for installation over the network).
- Downloading one huge ISO file (typically to burn your own DVD).
- Getting TeX Live on DVD (if you can't burn your own).
- Downloading several big tarballs (typically to do downstream development work).
- Mirroring/downloading the TeX Live repository (typically because you have problems with network installation, or have several machines to keep updated).
Future releases
The last general update of packages and programs for the DVD was made around 1 March 2026. However, we continuously update packages in TL as they are released to CTAN; Post-installation updates are done with the tlmgr program. tlmgr also provides many other TeX installation options and features, explained in the tlmgr documentation.
Although it is possible to update continuously, it is not necessary or particularly recommended. The set of packages and programs that were included in the official release will most likely suffice unless you know that you specifically need updates made since then. That set is also the only one which gets tested as a coherent release. On the other hand, if you like to get updates as they happen, please report problems you find to the package authors.
Past releases
Older releases of TeX Live are available under systems/texlive/ in the historic archive; both the initial release each year, and the frozen state at the end of the cycle in tlnet-final/ subdirectory. The installation archives are in the same places.
There's no problem with having multiple versions of TL installed (in different directories); the default directory structure is arranged to facilitate this.
The instructions on the quickinstall page can be adapted to installing an older version of TeX Live. The process is essentially the same; the difference is using a download host from the TeX historic archive for the desired version. For example, to install TL 2025 from the historic mirror in the US, first download the installer package:
hmirror=https://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/historic # use your best mirror wget $hmirror/systems/texlive/2025/tlnet-final/install-tl-unx.tar.gz
After unpacking that tarball, specify that same
server/directory when running the installer, along with any other
options you desire:
Some details on this:
- The historic repository has several mirrors (more mirrors are welcome), so please choose the best one for you instead of just copying the above utah.edu url.
- The exact path varies, depending on the mirror. Unfortunately, there is no generic name for the historic mirrors; you have to choose a specific host.
- If you are installing an older TeX Live on a newer macOS machine, you'll probably need to add -gui text to the install-tl invocation, since Apple no longer supports wish.
- This tex.stackexchange post has more details and caveats on installing an older TL. (Thanks Ben!)
To update or install a given package from an older release when the older release already installed: this can also be done using a historic mirror as the repository. For example, to get a package as it was at the end of the 2022 cycle:
# where hmirror is set per above tlmgr option repository $hmirror/systems/texlive/2022/tlnet-final tlmgr update ...
If you want to update from tlnet as of a specific day, and not the end of a release, you can use tlnet-archive.
There are no updates to TeX Live YYYY after YYYY+1 is released.
Getting GnuPG (GPG) on Windows or Mac
If you are on Windows or Mac, and don't already have GnuPG (a.k.a. GPG) installed: after the installation is done, you might wish to runtlmgr --repository https://texlive.info/tlgpg/ install tlgpg # windows/mac
This will enable checking that further updates come from the authentic source. On other systems, you'll need to install GPG through your operating system's package manager, outside of TeX Live. That can be done at any time.
Saving disk space with hard links
If you have multiple releases of TeX Live installed, and are on Unix, you can save quite a lot of disk space by hard-linking unchanged files. For instance:
hardlink -c /a/new/release /a/previous/release
This example uses the hardlink command. There are several programs to do the job.
Getting TeX via your distro
This page is about acquiring the “original” TeX Live—the version of TeX released by the TeX user groups. If you want to get TeX as it is packaged by the myriad operating system distros, see the information available from the particular distro you want. Some distro links. Any updates will then also have to be made through your distro.
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