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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label gethelp</title>
</head><body>
<h3>How to get help</h3>
<p/>So you&#8217;ve looked at all relevant <a href="FAQ-whereFAQ.html">FAQs</a> you
can find, you&#8217;ve looked in any <a href="FAQ-books.html">books</a> you have, and
scanned relevant <a href="FAQ-tutorialstar.html">tutorials</a>&#8230; and still you
don&#8217;t know what to do.
<p/>If you are seeking a particular package or program, look on your own
system first: you might already have it &#8212; the better TeX
distributions contain a wide range of supporting material.  The
CTAN Catalogue can also identify packages that might help: you
can <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/search">search it</a>, or you can browse it

&#8220;<a href="http://mirrors.ctan.org/help/Catalogue/bytopic.html">by topic</a>&#8221;.
A catalogue entry has a brief description of the package, and links to
any known documentation on the net.  In fact, a large proportion of
CTAN package directories now include documentation, so it&#8217;s
often worth looking at the catalogue entry for a package you&#8217;re considering
using.
<p/>Failing all that, look to see if anyone else has had the problem
before; there are two places where people ask: browse or search the
newsgroup <i>comp.text.tex</i> via
<a href="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.text.tex">Google groups</a>,
and the mailing list <code>texhax</code> via its
<a href="http://tug.org/pipermail/texhax/">archive</a>, or (as a long shot)
the archives of ancient posts on CTAN.
<p/>If those &#8220;back question&#8221; searches fail, you&#8217;ll have to ask the world
at large.  To ask a question on <i>comp.text.tex</i>, you can use
your own news client (if you have one), or use the &#8220;start a new
topic&#8221; button on <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/comp.text.tex">http://groups.google.com/group/comp.text.tex</a>.
To ask a question on <code>texhax</code>, you may simply send mail to
<a href="mailto:texhax@tug.org"><i>texhax@tug.org</i></a>, but it&#8217;s probably better to subscribe to the
list (via <a href="http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/texhax">http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/texhax</a>) 
first &#8212; not everyone will answer to you as well as to the list.
<p/>Do <b>not</b> try mailing the 
<a href="FAQ-LaTeX3.html">LaTeX project team</a>,
the maintainers of the TeX Live or MiKTeX distributions
or the maintainers of these FAQs
for help; while all these addresses reach experienced (La)TeX
users, no small group can possibly have expertise in every area of
usage so that the &#8220;big&#8221; lists are a far better bet.
<dl>
<dt><tt><i>texhax &#8216;back copies&#8217;</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/digests/texhax/">digests/texhax/</a>
</dl>
<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=gethelp">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=gethelp</a>
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