# TeX Live {#sec-language-texlive}

There is a TeX Live packaging that lives entirely under attribute `texlive`.

## User's guide (experimental new interface) {#sec-language-texlive-user-guide-experimental}

Release 23.11 ships with a new interface that will eventually replace `texlive.combine`.

- For basic usage, use some of the prebuilt environments available at the top level, such as `texliveBasic`, `texliveSmall`. For the full list of prebuilt environments, inspect `texlive.schemes`.

- Packages cannot be used directly but must be assembled in an environment. To create or add packages to an environment, use
  ```nix
  texliveSmall.withPackages (
    ps: with ps; [
      collection-langkorean
      algorithms
      cm-super
    ]
  )
  ```
  The function `withPackages` can be called multiple times to add more packages.

  - **Note.** Within Nixpkgs, packages should only use prebuilt environments as inputs, such as `texliveSmall` or `texliveInfraOnly`, and should not depend directly on `texlive`. Further dependencies should be added by calling `withPackages`. This is to ensure that there is a consistent and simple way to override the inputs.

- `texlive.withPackages` uses the same logic as `buildEnv`. Only parts of a package are installed in an environment: its 'runtime' files (`tex` output), binaries (`out` output), and support files (`tlpkg` output). Moreover, man and info pages are assembled into separate `man` and `info` outputs. To add only the TeX files of a package, or its documentation (`texdoc` output), just specify the outputs:
  ```nix
  texlive.withPackages (
    ps: with ps; [
      texdoc # recommended package to navigate the documentation
      perlPackages.LaTeXML.tex # tex files of LaTeXML, omit binaries
      cm-super
      cm-super.texdoc # documentation of cm-super
    ]
  )
  ```

- All packages distributed by TeX Live, which contains most of CTAN, are available and can be found under `texlive.pkgs`:
  ```ShellSession
  $ nix repl
  nix-repl> :l <nixpkgs>
  nix-repl> texlive.pkgs.[TAB]
  ```
  Note that the packages in `texlive.pkgs` are only provided for search purposes and must not be used directly.

- **Experimental and subject to change without notice:** to add the documentation for all packages in the environment, use
  ```nix
  texliveSmall.__overrideTeXConfig { withDocs = true; }
  ```
  This can be applied before or after calling `withPackages`.

  The function currently support the parameters `withDocs`, `withSources`, and `requireTeXPackages`.

## User's guide {#sec-language-texlive-user-guide}

- For basic usage just pull `texlive.combined.scheme-basic` for an environment with basic LaTeX support.

- It typically won't work to use separately installed packages together. Instead, you can build a custom set of packages like this. Most CTAN packages should be available:

  ```nix
  texlive.combine {
    inherit (texlive)
      scheme-small
      collection-langkorean
      algorithms
      cm-super
      ;
  }
  ```

- There are all the schemes, collections and a few thousand packages, as defined upstream (perhaps with tiny differences).

- By default you only get executables and files needed during runtime, and a little documentation for the core packages. To change that, you need to add `pkgFilter` function to `combine`.

  ```nix
  texlive.combine {
    # inherit (texlive) whatever-you-want;
    pkgFilter =
      pkg: pkg.tlType == "run" || pkg.tlType == "bin" || pkg.hasManpages || pkg.pname == "cm-super";
    # elem tlType [ "run" "bin" "doc" "source" ]
    # there are also other attributes: version, name
  }
  ```

- You can list packages e.g. by `nix repl`.

  ```ShellSession
  $ nix repl
  nix-repl> :l <nixpkgs>
  nix-repl> texlive.collection-[TAB]
  ```

- Note that the wrapper assumes that the result has a chance to be useful. For example, the core executables should be present, as well as some core data files. The supported way of ensuring this is by including some scheme, for example `scheme-basic`, into the combination.