TEX is a powerful, flexible typesetting system used by thousands of people around the world. It is extremely portable and runs on virtually all operating systems. One unfortunate side effect of TEX's flexibility is that there is no single ``right'' way to install it. This has resulted in many sites having different installed arrangements.
The primary purpose of this document is to describe a standard TEX Directory Structure (TDS): a directory hierarchy for macros, fonts, and the other implementation-independent TEX files. As a matter of practicality, this document also suggests ways to incorporate the rest of the TEX files into a single structure. It has been designed to work on all modern systems. In particular, this Technical Working Group (TWG) believes it is usable under Unix, ms-dos, Windows nt, os/2, MacOS, and vms. We hope that administrators and developers of both free and commercial implementations of TEX will adopt this standard.
This document is intended both for the TEX system administrator at a site and for people preparing TEX distributions—everything from a complete runnable system to a single macro or style file. It may also help TEX users find their way around systems organized this way. It is not, however, a tutorial: we necessarily assume knowledge of the many parts of a working TEX system. If you are unfamiliar with any of the programs or file formats we refer to, consult the references in Appendix D.