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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label uploads</title>
</head><body>
<h3>Contributing a file to the archives</h3>
<p/>You have something to submit to the archive &#8212; great!  Before we even
start, here&#8217;s a check-list of things to sort out:
<ol>
<li> Licence: in the spirit of TeX, we hope for free software; in
  the spirit of today&#8217;s lawyer-enthralled society, CTAN
  provides a 
  <a href="http://mirrors.ctan.org/help/Catalogue/licenses.html">list of &#8220;standard&#8221; licence statements</a>.
<li> Documentation: it&#8217;s good for users to be able to browse
  documentation before downloading a package.  You need at least a
  plain text <i>README</i> file (exactly that name); in addition a
  PDF file of the package documentation, prepared for screen
  reading, is highly desirable.
<li> Name: endless confusion is caused by name clashes.  If your
  package has the same name as one already on CTAN, or if your
  package installation generates files of the same name as something
  in a &#8220;normal&#8221; distribution, the CTAN team will delay
  installation while they check that you&#8217;re doing the right thing:
  they may nag you to change the name, or to negotiate a take-over
  with the author of the original package. 
  <a href="FAQ-findfiles.html">Browse the archive</a> to ensure uniqueness.
<p/>  The name you choose should also (as far as possible) be somewhat
  descriptive of what your submission actually <em>does</em>; while
  &#8220;descriptiveness&#8221; is to some extent in the eye of the beholder,
  it&#8217;s clear that names such as <i>mypackage</i> or <i>jiffy</i>
  aren&#8217;t suitable.
</ol>
<p/>If you are able to use anonymous <i>ftp</i>, you can upload that
way.  The file <i>README.uploads</i> on CTAN tells you
where to upload, what to upload, and how to notify the CTAN
management about what you want doing with your upload.
<p/>You may also upload via the Web: each of the principal CTAN
sites offers an upload page &#8212; choose from
<a href="http://www.ctan.org/upload.html">http://www.ctan.org/upload.html</a>,
<a href="http://www.dante.de/CTAN/upload.html">http://www.dante.de/CTAN/upload.html</a> or
<a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/upload.html">http://www.tex.ac.uk/upload.html</a>; the pages lead you through the
process, showing you the information you need to supply.  This method
enforces one file per upload: if you had intended to upload lots of
files, you need to bundle them into an &#8216;archive&#8217; file of some sort;
acceptable formats are <code>.zip</code> and <code>.tar.gz</code> (or
<code>.tar.bz2</code>).
<p/>If you can use neither of these methods, or if you find something
confusing, ask advice of the

  <a href="mailto:ctan@dante.de">CTAN management</a>:
if the worst comes to the worst, it may be possible to mail a
contribution.  This really is a last-resort route: none of the
CTAN sites is anyone&#8217;s regular workstation, so if you mail to
one of the maintainers, that maintainer then has to upload to
CTAN.
<p/>If it&#8217;s appropriate (if your package is large, or regularly updated),
the CTAN management can arrange to <i>mirror</i> your
contribution direct into the archive.  At present this may only be
done if your contribution is available via <i>ftp</i>, and of
course the directory structure on your repository must &#8216;fit&#8217;.
<dl>
<dt><tt><i>README.uploads</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/README.uploads">README.uploads</a>
</dl>
<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=uploads">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=uploads</a>
</body>