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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label archives</title>
</head><body>
<h3>Repositories of TeX material</h3>
<p/>To aid the archiving and retrieval of of TeX-related files, a
TUG working group developed the Comprehensive TeX Archive
Network (CTAN).  Each CTAN site has identical material,
and maintains authoritative versions of its material.  These
collections are extensive; in particular, almost everything mentioned
in this FAQ
is archived at the CTAN sites (see the lists of software at the
end of each answer).
<p/>
  The CTAN sites are
  <a href="ftp://dante.ctan.org/tex-archive">Dante (Germany)</a>,
  <a href="ftp://cam.ctan.org/tex-archive">Cambridge (UK)</a> and
  <a href="ftp://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive">TUG (USA)</a>; the links are to
  the root of the CTAN tree, above which the layout is
  identical at each site.
<p/>The TeX files at each CTAN node may also be accessed via
the Web at URLs <a href="http://www.dante.de/tex-archive">http://www.dante.de/tex-archive</a>,
<a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive">http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive</a> and
<a href="http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive">http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive</a> respectively, but not all
CTAN mirrors are Web-accessible.
<p/>As a matter of course, to reduce network load,
please use the CTAN site
or mirror closest to you.  A complete and current list of CTAN sites
and known mirrors is available as file <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk  tex-archiveCTAN.sites">CTAN.sites</a> on the
archives themselves.
<p/>Better still, the script behind <a href="http://mirror.ctan.org/">http://mirror.ctan.org/</a> will
cunningly choose a &ldquo;nearby&rdquo; mirror for you, using information from
the database &lsquo;behind&rsquo; <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk  tex-archiveCTAN.sites">CTAN.sites</a>; at present it uses
<code>ftp</code> protocol for transfers, but the intention is to convert
it to using <code>http</code> (web) protocol in the near future.
<p/>To access a particular thing through the <code>mirror.ctan.org</code>
mechanism, simply place the CTAN path after the base
URL; so
<a href="http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/footmisc/">http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/footmisc/</a> will
connect you to the <i>footmisc</i> directory at some CTAN
site &mdash; note that the <i>tex-archive</i> part of the CTAN path
isn&rsquo;t needed.
<p/>For details of how to find files at CTAN sites, see
&ldquo;<a href="FAQ-findfiles.html">finding (La)TeX files</a>&rdquo;.
<p/>The TeX user who has no access to any sort of
network may buy a copy of the archive as part of the
<a href="FAQ-CD.html">TeX Live distribution</a>.
<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=archives">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=archives</a>
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