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# Tectonic

Tectonic is a modernized, complete, self-contained
[TeX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX)/[LaTeX](https://www.latex-project.org/)
engine, powered by [XeTeX](http://xetex.sourceforge.net/) and
[TeXLive](https://www.tug.org/texlive/).

## Read this first

If you just want to compile TeX documents, you should probably **click through
to [the main Tectonic website](https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/)**. This
page is primarily aimed at folks interested in how Tectonic works "under the
hood." If you want to build the [`tectonic`][crate] Rust crate, check out [its
README](./CARGO_README.md).

[crate]: https://crates.io/crates/tectonic

## Developer dashboard

<a href="https://repology.org/metapackage/tectonic">
    <img src="https://repology.org/badge/vertical-allrepos/tectonic.svg" alt="Packaging status" align="right">
</a>

- [User website](https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/)
- [Community discussion forum](https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/discussions)
- [Installation](https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/book/latest/installation/)
- [Build instructions](https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/book/latest/howto/build-tectonic/)
- [API documentation](https://docs.rs/tectonic/)
- [Issues](https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/issues/)
- [Changelog](https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/blob/release/CHANGELOG.md)

## Technical ecosystem

If you’re interested in Tectonic as a software tool, you might also want to check out:

- One of the following [GitHub Actions](https://github.com/features/actions)
    - [setup-tectonic](https://github.com/marketplace/actions/setup-tectonic), which lets you use tectonic directly in your workflows (supports caching + optionally biber)
    - [compile-latex](https://github.com/marketplace/actions/compile-latex) contributed by [Vinay
  Sharma](https://github.com/vinay0410), which is powered by Tectonic.
- [tt.ente.ninja](https://tt.ente.ninja), which runs Tectonic against a subset
  of the [arxiv.org](https://arxiv.org/) corpus à la the Rust tool
  [Crater](https://github.com/rust-lang/crater) — a
  [project](https://github.com/Mrmaxmeier/tectonic-on-arXiv) by
  [@Mrmaxmeier](https://github.com/Mrmaxmeier/)

## The "reference sources"

Much of the core code of Tectonic is derived from
[XeTeX](http://xetex.sourceforge.net/), and we strive to track and maintain
compatibility with upstream as much as possible. However, the nature of the
Tectonic project is such that its source code is going to diverge from that of
XeTeX over time. We can do our best to track the *semantics* of changes to
XeTeX, but the expression of those changes in source form may well change
greatly over time.

In this repository, the Git submodule `reference_sources` links to the
["staging repository"](https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic-staging)
that tracks the XeTeX source
code that we use as a reference. In particular, the version of the reference
code in the submodule is the most recent code whose semantics are *guaranteed*
to be expressed in Tectonic, to the best of our efforts. You don’t need to
clone `reference_sources` to build Tectonic (which is good because everyone is
always super confused by how Git submodules work!). It just provides a
convenient way for Git to track the exact reference code that we are using at
any given time.

Please see
[the tectonic-staging README](https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic-staging#readme)
for more information. (Or at least, more words on the topic.)
