TeX CDROMs

If you don't have access to the Internet, there are obvious attractions to TeX collections on a CDROM. Even those with net access will find large quantities of TeX-related files to hand a great convenience.

Ready-to-run TeX systems on CDROM are available:

• A consortium of User Groups (notably TUG, UK TUG and GUTenberg) distributes the TeX Live CDROM, now in its sixth edition. All members of several User Groups receive copies free of charge. Some user groups will also sell additional copies: contact your local user group or TUG.

  Details of TeX Live are available from its own web page on the TUG site.

• The Dutch TeX Users Group (NTG) publish the whole 4AllTeX workbench on a 2-CDROM set packed with all the Windows TeX software, macros and fonts you can want. It is available from NTG direct, from TUG for $40 and from UK TUG for £30 (a manual is included). It is a useful resource for anyone to browse, not just for Windows users.

An alternative to the ready-to-run system is the CTAN archive snapshot; in general one would expect that such systems would be harder to use, but that the volume of resources offered would balance this extra inconvenience. There were once commercial offerings in this field, but nowadays the snapshot supplied to user group members annually is about the only source of such things.