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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label bug</title>
</head><body>
<h3>What to do if you find a bug</h3>




<p/>For a start, make entirely sure you <em>have</em> found a bug.
Double-check with books about TeX, LaTeX, or whatever you&#8217;re using;
compare what you&#8217;re seeing against the other answers above; ask every
possible person you know who has any TeX-related expertise.
The reasons for all this caution are various.
<p/>If you&#8217;ve found a bug in TeX itself, you&#8217;re a rare animal indeed.
Don Knuth is so sure of the quality of his code that he offers real
money prizes to finders of bugs; the cheques he writes are
such rare items that they are seldom cashed. If <em>you</em>
think you have found a genuine fault in TeX itself (or Metafont, or the
CM fonts, or the TeXbook), don&#8217;t immediately write to Knuth,
however. He only looks at bugs infrequently, and even then
only after they are agreed as bugs by a small vetting team. In the
first instance, contact Barbara Beeton at the AMS
(<i>bnb@ams.org</i>), or contact
<a href="FAQ-TUGstar.html">TUG</a>.
<p/>If you&#8217;ve found a bug in LaTeX2e, <a href="FAQ-latexbug.html">report it</a>
using mechanisms supplied by the LaTeX team.  (Please be
careful to ensure you&#8217;ve got a LaTeX bug, or a bug in one of the
&#8220;required&#8221;  packages distributed by the LaTeX team.)
<p/>If you&#8217;ve found a bug in a contributed LaTeX package, you could try
contacting the author (if you can find a contact address).  However,
it&#8217;s generally best to treat any package as unsupported, in the first
instance, and only try the author <em>after</em> mailing list/news group
support has failed you.
<p/>If you&#8217;ve found a bug in LaTeX 2.09, or some other such unsupported
software, you may find help or
<em>de facto</em> support on a newsgroup such as
<i>comp.tex.tex</i> or on a mailing list such as
<a href="mailto:texhax@tug.org"><i>texhax@tug.org</i></a>; be careful to include a 
<a href="FAQ-minxampl.html">code example</a> of the
failure, if relevant.
<p/>Failing all else, you may need to pay for
help &#8212; TUG maintains a 
<a href="http://www.tug.org/consultants.html">register of TeX consultants</a>.
<p/><p/>



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