The most up-to-date version of this documentation (updated nightly from the development sources) is available at <http://tug.org/texlive/tlmgr.html>, along with procedures for updating "tlmgr" itself and information about test versions.
WARNING: tlmgr in Debian runs always in user mode
TeX Live is organized into a few top-level schemes, each of which is specified as a different set of collections and packages, where a collection is a set of packages, and a package is what contains actual files. Schemes typically contain a mix of collections and packages, but each package is included in exactly one collection, no more and no less. A TeX Live installation can be customized and managed at any level.
See <http://tug.org/texlive/doc> for all the TeX Live documentation available.
For all the capabilities and details of "tlmgr", please read the following voluminous information.
"--repository" changes the repository location only for the current run; to make a permanent change, use "option repository" (see the ``option'' action).
For backward compatibility and convenience, "--location" and "--repo" are accepted as aliases for this option.
tlmgr --gui update
starts you directly at the update screen. If no action is given, the GUI will be started at the main screen.
If this is not possible, "tlmgr" will fall back to using "wget". To disable these persistent connections, use "--no-persistent-downloads".
The standard options for TeX Live programs are also accepted: "--help/-h/-?", "--version", "-q" (no informational messages), "-v" (debugging messages, can be repeated). For the details about these, see the "TeXLive::TLUtils" documentation.
The "--version" option shows version information about the TeX Live release and about the "tlmgr" script itself. If "-v" is also given, revision number for the loaded TeX Live Perl modules are shown, too.
If "-v" has been given the revisions of the used modules are reported, too.
If the "--clean" option is specified, backups are pruned (removed) instead of saved. The optional integer value N may be specified to set the number of backups that will be retained when cleaning. If "N" is not given, the value of the "autobackup" option is used. If both are missing, an error is issued. For more details of backup pruning, see the "option" action.
Options:
If you call "tlmgr check collections" this test will be carried out instead since former versions for "tlmgr" called it that way.
Options:
With either "conf texmf", "conf tlmgr", or "conf updmap" given in addition, shows all key/value pairs (i.e., all settings) as saved in "ROOT/texmf.cnf", the tlmgr configuration file (see below), or the first found (via kpsewhich) "updmap.cfg" file, respectively.
If key is given in addition, shows the value of only that key in the respective file. If option --delete is also given, the configuration file --- it is removed, not just commented out!
If value is given in addition, key is set to value in the respective file. No error checking is done!
In all cases the file used can be explicitly specified via the option "--conffile file", in case one wants to operate on a different file.
Practical application: if the execution of (some or all) system commands via "\write18" was left enabled during installation, you can disable it afterwards:
tlmgr conf texmf shell_escape 0
A more complicated example: the "TEXMFHOME" tree (see the main TeX Live guide, <http://tug.org/texlive/doc.html>) can be set to multiple directories, but they must be enclosed in braces and separated by commas, so quoting the value to the shell is a good idea. Thus:
tlmgr conf texmf TEXMFHOME "{~/texmf,~/texmfbis}"
Warning: The general facility is here, but tinkering with settings in this way is very strongly discouraged. Again, no error checking on either keys or values is done, so any sort of breakage is possible.
Options:
Exactly one of "--local" and "--remote" must be given.
In either case, the first line of the output specifies the repository location, in this format:
"location-url" "\t" location
where "location-url" is the literal field name, followed by a tab, and location is the file or url to the repository.
Line endings may be either LF or CRLF depending on the current platform.
The "generate" action overwrites any manual changes made in the respective files: it recreates them from scratch based on the information of the installed packages, plus local adaptions. The TeX Live installer and "tlmgr" routinely call "generate" for all of these files.
For managing your own fonts, please read the "updmap --help" information and/or <http://tug.org/fonts/fontinstall.html>.
In more detail: "generate" remakes any of the configuration files "language.dat", "language.def", "language.dat.lua", and "fmtutil.cnf", from the information present in the local TLPDB, plus locally-maintained files.
The locally-maintained files are "language-local.dat", "language-local.def", "language-local.dat.lua", or "fmtutil-local.cnf", searched for in "TEXMFLOCAL" in the respective directories. If local additions are present, the final file is made by starting with the main file, omitting any entries that the local file specifies to be disabled, and finally appending the local file.
(Historical note: The formerly supported "updmap-local.cfg" is no longer read, since "updmap" now supports multiple "updmap.cfg" files. Thus, local additions can and should be put into an "updmap.cfg" file in "TEXMFLOCAL". The "generate updmap" action no longer exists.)
Local files specify entries to be disabled with a comment line, namely one of these:
#!NAME %!NAME --!NAME
where "fmtutil.cnf" uses "#", "language.dat" and "language.def" use "%", and "language.dat.lua" use "--". In all cases, the name is the respective format name or hyphenation pattern identifier. Examples:
#!pdflatex %!german --!usenglishmax
(Of course, you're not likely to actually want to disable those particular items. They're just examples.)
After such a disabling line, the local file can include another entry for the same item, if a different definition is desired. In general, except for the special disabling lines, the local files follow the same syntax as the master files.
The form "generate language" recreates all three files "language.dat", "language.def", and "language.dat.lua", while the forms with an extension recreates only that given language file.
Options:
These subsequent calls cause the newly-generated files to actually take effect. This is not done by default since those calls are lengthy processes and one might want to made several related changes in succession before invoking these programs.
The respective locations are as follows:
tex/generic/config/language.dat (and language-local.dat); tex/generic/config/language.def (and language-local.def); tex/generic/config/language.dat.lua (and language-local.dat.lua); web2c/fmtutil.cnf (and fmtutil-local.cnf);
With the single word "collections" or "schemes" as the argument, lists the request type instead of all packages.
With any other arguments, display information about pkg: the name, category, short and long description, installation status, and TeX Live revision number. If pkg is not locally installed, searches in the remote installation source.
It also displays information taken from the TeX Catalogue, namely the package version, date, and license. Consider these, especially the package version, as approximations only, due to timing skew of the updates of the different pieces. By contrast, the "revision" value comes directly from TL and is reliable.
The former actions "show" and "list" are merged into this action, but are still supported for backward compatibility.
Options:
When re-installing, only dependencies on normal packages are followed (i.e., not those of category Scheme or Collection).
The first form shows the global TeX Live settings currently saved in the TLPDB with a short description and the "key" used for changing it in parentheses.
The second form is similar, but also shows options which can be defined but are not currently set to any value.
In the third form, if value is not given, the setting for key is displayed. If value is present, key is set to value.
Possible values for key are (run "tlmgr option showall" for the definitive list):
repository (default package repository), formats (create formats at installation time), postcode (run postinst code blobs) docfiles (install documentation files), srcfiles (install source files), backupdir (default directory for backups), autobackup (number of backups to keep). sys_bin (directory to which executables are linked by the path action) sys_man (directory to which man pages are linked by the path action) sys_info (directory to which Info files are linked by the path action) desktop_integration (Windows-only: create Start menu shortcuts) fileassocs (Windows-only: change file associations) multiuser (Windows-only: install for all users)
One common use of "option" is to permanently change the installation to get further updates from the Internet, after originally installing from DVD. To do this, you can run
tlmgr option repository http://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet
The "install-tl" documentation has more information about the possible values for "repository". (For backward compatibility, "location" can be used as alternative name for "repository".)
If "formats" is set (this is the default), then formats are regenerated when either the engine or the format files have changed. Disable this only when you know what you are doing.
The "postcode" option controls execution of per-package postinstallation action code. It is set by default, and again disabling is not likely to be of interest except perhaps to developers.
The "docfiles" and "srcfiles" options control the installation of their respective files of a package. By default both are enabled (1). This can be disabled (set to 0) if disk space is (very) limited.
The options "autobackup" and "backupdir" determine the defaults for the actions "update", "backup" and "restore". These three actions need a directory in which to read or write the backups. If "--backupdir" is not specified on the command line, the "backupdir" option value is used (if set).
The "autobackup" option (de)activates automatic generation of backups. Its value is an integer. If the "autobackup" value is "-1", no backups are removed. If "autobackup" is 0 or more, it specifies the number of backups to keep. Thus, backups are disabled if the value is 0. In the "--clean" mode of the "backup" action this option also specifies the number to be kept.
To setup "autobackup" to "-1" on the command line, use:
tlmgr option -- autobackup -1
The "--" avoids having the "-1" treated as an option. ("--" stops parsing for options at the point where it appears; this is a general feature across most Unix programs.)
The "sys_bin", "sys_man", and "sys_info" options are used on Unix-like systems to control the generation of links for executables, info files and man pages. See the "path" action for details.
The last three options control behaviour on Windows installations. If "desktop_integration" is set, then some packages will install items in a sub-folder of the Start menu for "tlmgr gui", documentation, etc. If "fileassocs" is set, Windows file associations are made (see also the "postaction" action). Finally, if "multiuser" is set, then adaptions to the registry and the menus are done for all users on the system instead of only the current user. All three options are on by default.
With no arguments ("tlmgr paper"), shows the default paper size setting for all known programs.
With one argument (e.g., "tlmgr paper a4"), sets the default for all known programs to that paper size.
With a program given as the first argument and no paper size specified (e.g., "tlmgr dvips paper"), shows the default paper size for that program.
With a program given as the first argument and a paper size as the last argument (e.g., "tlmgr dvips paper a4"), set the default for that program to that paper size.
With a program given as the first argument and "--list" given as the last argument (e.g., "tlmgr dvips paper --list"), shows all valid paper sizes for that program. The first size shown is the default.
Incidentally, this syntax of having a specific program name before the "paper" keyword is unusual. It is inherited from the longstanding "texconfig" script, which supports other configuration settings for some programs, notably "dvips". "tlmgr" does not support those extra settings.
On Windows, the registry part where the binary directory is added or removed is determined in the following way:
If the user has admin rights, and the option "--w32mode" is not given, the setting w32_multi_user determines the location (i.e., if it is on then the system path, otherwise the user path is changed).
If the user has admin rights, and the option "--w32mode" is given, this option determines the path to be adjusted.
If the user does not have admin rights, and the option "--w32mode" is not given, and the setting w32_multi_user is off, the user path is changed, while if the setting w32_multi_user is on, a warning is issued that the caller does not have enough privileges.
If the user does not have admin rights, and the option "--w32mode" is given, it must be user and the user path will be adjusted. If a user without admin rights uses the option "--w32mode admin" a warning is issued that the caller does not have enough privileges.
"platform add" platform... adds the executables for each given platform platform to the installation from the repository.
"platform remove" platform... removes the executables for each given platform platform from the installation, but keeps the currently running platform in any case.
"platform set" platform switches TeX Live to always use the given platform instead of auto detection.
"platform set auto" switches TeX Live to auto detection mode for platform.
Platform detection is needed to select the proper "xz", "xzdec" and "wget" binaries that are shipped with TeX Live.
"arch" is a synonym for "platform".
Options:
If the option "--w32mode" is given the value "user", all actions will only be carried out in the user-accessible parts of the registry/filesystem, while the value "admin" selects the system-wide parts of the registry for the file associations. If you do not have enough permissions, using "--w32mode=admin" will not succeed.
"--fileassocmode" specifies the action for file associations. If it is set to 1 (the default), only new associations are added; if it is set to 2, all associations are set to the TeX Live programs. (See also "option fileassocs".)
If "--all" is given, try to restore the latest revision of all package backups found in the backup directory.
Otherwise, if neither pkg nor rev are given, list the available backup revisions for all packages.
With pkg given but no rev, list all available backup revisions of pkg.
When listing available packages tlmgr shows the revision and in parenthesis the creation time if available (in format yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm).
With both pkg and rev, tries to restore the package from the specified backup.
Options:
A package that has been removed using the "--force" option because it is still listed in an installed collection or scheme will not be updated, and will be mentioned as forcibly removed in the output of tlmgr update --list.
The first form ("list") lists all configured repositories and the respective tags if set. If a path, url, or tag is given after the "list" keyword, it is interpreted as source from where to initialize a TeX Live Database and lists the contained packages. This can also be an up-to-now not used repository, both locally and remote. If one pass in addition "--with-platforms", for each package the available platforms (if any) are listed, too.
The third form ("add") adds a repository (optionally attaching a tag) to the list of repositories. The forth form ("remove") removes a repository, either by full path/url, or by tag. The last form ("set") sets the list of repositories to the items given on the command line, not keeping previous settings
In all cases, one of the repositories must be tagged as "main"; otherwise, all operations will fail!
search [option...] --taxonomy what
search [option...] --keyword what
search [option...] --functionality what
search [option...] --characterization what
search [option...] --all what
By default, search the names, short descriptions, and long descriptions of all locally installed packages for the argument what, interpreted as a regular expression.
Options:
Other search options are selected by specifying one of the following:
In addition to updating the installed packages, during the update of a collection the local installation is (by default) synchronized to the status of the collection on the server, for both additions and removals.
This means that if a package has been removed on the server (and thus has also been removed from the respective collection), "tlmgr" will remove the package in the local installation. This is called ``auto-remove'' and is announced as such when using the option "--list". This auto-removal can be suppressed using the option "--no-auto-remove" (not recommended, see option description).
Analogously, if a package has been added to a collection on the server that is also installed locally, it will be added to the local installation. This is called ``auto-install'' and is announced as such when using the option "--list". This auto-installation can be suppressed using the option "--no-auto-install".
An exception to the collection dependency checks (including the auto-installation of packages just mentioned) are those that have been ``forcibly removed'' by you, that is, you called "tlmgr remove --force" on them. (See the "remove" action documentation.) To reinstall any such forcibly removed packages use "--reinstall-forcibly-removed".
If you want to exclude some packages from the current update run (e.g., due to a slow link), see the "--exclude" option below.
If this option is given together with either "--all" or a list of packages, then "tlmgr" will be updated first and, if this update succeeds, the new version will be restarted to complete the rest of the updates.
In short:
tlmgr update --self # update infrastructure only tlmgr update --self --all # update infrastructure and all packages tlmgr update --force --all # update all packages but *not* infrastructure # ... this last at your own risk, not recommended!
An argument pkg excludes both the package pkg itself and all its related platform-specific packages pkg.ARCH. For example,
tlmgr update --all --exclude a2ping
will not update "a2ping", "a2ping.i386-linux", or any other "a2ping."ARCH package.
If this option specifies a package that would otherwise be a candidate for auto-installation, auto-removal, or reinstallation of a forcibly removed package, "tlmgr" quits with an error message. Excludes are not supported in these circumstances.
Furthermore, after the "tlmgr" run using this has finished, the packages that would have been auto-installed will be considered as forcibly removed. So, if "foobar" is the only new package on the server, then
tlmgr update --all --no-auto-install
is equivalent to
tlmgr update --all tlmgr remove --force foobar
This option makes "tlmgr" ignore the forcible removals and re-install all such packages. This can be used to completely synchronize an installation with the server's idea of what is available:
tlmgr update --reinstall-forcibly-removed --all
You can set options via the "option" action to automatically create backups for all packages, and/or keep only a certain number of backups. Please see the "option" action for details.
"tlmgr" always makes a temporary backup when updating packages, in case of download or other failure during an update. In contrast, the purpose of this "--backup" option is to allow you to save a persistent backup in case the actual content of the update causes problems, e.g., introduces an incompatibility.
The "restore" action explains how to restore from a backup.
Also, "update --list" is still performed regardless of this option.
If the package on the server is older than the package already installed (e.g., if the selected mirror is out of date), "tlmgr" does not downgrade. Also, packages for uninstalled platforms are not installed.
"tlmgr" is switched into user mode with the command line option "--usermode". It does not switch automatically, nor is there any configuration file setting for it. Thus, this option has to be explicitly given every time user mode is to be activated.
This mode of "tlmgr" works on a user tree, by default the value of the "TEXMFHOME" variable. This can be overridden with the command line option "--usertree". In the following when we speak of the user tree we mean either "TEXMFHOME" or the one given on the command line.
Not all actions are allowed in user mode; "tlmgr" will warn you and not carry out any problematic actions. Currently not supported (and probably will never be) is the "platform" action. The "gui" action is currently not supported, but may be in a future release.
Some "tlmgr" actions don't need any write permissions and thus work the same in user mode and normal mode. Currently these are: "check", "help", "list", "print-platform", "search", "show", "version".
On the other hand, most of the actions dealing with package management do need write permissions, and thus behave differently in user mode, as described below: "install", "update", "remove", "option", "paper", "generate", "backup", "restore", "uninstall", "symlinks".
Before using "tlmgr" in user mode, you have to set up the user tree with the "init-usertree" action. This creates usertree"/web2c" and usertree"/tlpkg/tlpobj", and a minimal usertree"/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb". At that point, you can tell "tlmgr" to do the (supported) actions by adding the "--usermode" command line option.
In user mode the file usertree"/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb" contains only the packages that have been installed into the user tree using "tlmgr", plus additional options from the ``virtual'' package "00texlive.installation" (similar to the main installation's "texlive.tlpdb").
All actions on packages in user mode can only be carried out on packages that are known as "relocatable". This excludes all packages containing executables and a few other core packages. Of the 2500 or so packages currently in TeX Live the vast majority are relocatable and can be installed into a user tree.
Description of changes of actions in user mode:
Currently installing a collection in user mode installs all dependent packages, but in contrast to normal mode, does not install dependent collections. For example, in normal mode "tlmgr install collection-context" would install "collection-basic" and other collections, while in user mode, only the packages mentioned in "collection-context" are installed.
In this file, empty lines and lines starting with # are ignored. All other lines must look like
key = value
where the allowed keys are "gui-expertmode" (value 0 or 1), "persistent-downloads" (value 0 or 1), "auto-remove" (value 0 or 1), and "gui-lang" (value like in the command line option).
"persistent-downloads", "gui-lang", and "auto-remove" correspond to the respective command line options of the same name. "gui-expertmode" switches between the full GUI and a simplified GUI with only the important and mostly used settings.
There are three different taxonomies, specified by the following options:
The taxonomies are updated nightly and stored within TeX Live, so Internet access is not required to search them.
Examples:
tlmgr search --taxonomy exercise # check all taxonomies for "exercise" tlmgr search --taxonomy --word table # check for "table" on its own tlmgr search --list --keyword # dump entire keyword taxonomy tlmgr show --taxonomy pdftex # show pdftex package information, # including all taxonomy entries
The simplest and most reliable method is to temporarily set the installation source to any repository (with the "-repository" or "option repository" command line options), and perform your operations.
When you are using multiple repositories over a sustained time, however, explicitly switching between them becomes inconvenient. Thus, it's possible to tell "tlmgr" about additional repositories you want to use. The basic command is "tlmgr repository add". The rest of this section explains further.
When using multiple repositories, one of them has to be set as the main repository, which distributes most of the installed packages. When you switch from a single repository installation to a multiple repository installation, the previous sole repository will be set as the main repository.
By default, even if multiple repositories are configured, packages are still only installed from the main repository. Thus, simply adding a second repository does not actually enable installation of anything from there. You also have to specify which packages should be taken from the new repository, by specifying so-called ``pinning'' rules, described next.
As mentioned above, by default everything is pinned to the main repository. Let's now go through an example of setting up a second repository and enabling updates of a package from it.
First, check that we have support for multiple repositories, and have only one enabled (as is the case by default):
$ tlmgr repository list List of repositories (with tags if set): /var/www/norbert/tlnet
Ok. Let's add the "tlcontrib" repository (this is a real repository, hosted at <http://tlcontrib.metatex.org>, maintained by Taco Hoekwater et al.), with the tag "tlcontrib":
$ tlmgr repository add http://tlcontrib.metatex.org/2012 tlcontrib
Check the repository list again:
$ tlmgr repository list List of repositories (with tags if set): http://tlcontrib.metatex.org/2012 (tlcontrib) /var/www/norbert/tlnet (main)
Now we specify a pinning entry to get the package "context" from "tlcontrib":
$ tlmgr pinning add tlcontrib context
Check that we can find "context":
$ tlmgr show context tlmgr: package repositories: ... package: context repository: tlcontrib/26867 ...
- install "context":
$ tlmgr install context tlmgr: package repositories: ... [1/1, ??:??/??:??] install: context @tlcontrib [
In the output here you can see that the "context" package has been installed from the "tlcontrib" repository (@tlcontrib).
Finally, "tlmgr pinning" also supports removing certain or all packages from a given repository:
$ tlmgr pinning remove tlcontrib context # remove just context $ tlmgr pinning remove tlcontrib --all # take nothing from tlcontrib
A summary of the "tlmgr pinning" actions is given above.
When started with "tlmgr gui" the graphical user interface will be shown. The main window contains a menu bar, the main display, and a status area where messages normally shown on the console are displayed.
Within the main display there are three main parts: the "Display configuration" area, the list of packages, and the action buttons.
Also, at the top right the currently loaded repository is shown; this also acts as a button and when clicked will try to load the default repository. To load a different repository, see the "tlmgr" menu item.
Finally, the status area at the bottom of the window gives additional information about what is going on.
The first part of the main display allows you to specify (filter) which packages are shown. By default, all are shown. Changes here are reflected right away.
Package list area
The second are of the main display lists all installed packages. If a repository is loaded, those that are available but not installed are also listed.
Double clicking on a package line pops up an informational window with further details: the long description, included files, etc.
Each line of the package list consists of the following items:
Main display action buttons
Below the list of packages are several buttons:
The other four buttons only work on the selected packages, i.e., those where the checkbox at the beginning of the package line is ticked.
Several toggles are also here. The first is "Expert options", which is set by default. If you turn this off, the next time you start the GUI a simplified screen will be shown that display only the most important functionality. This setting is saved in the configuration file of "tlmgr"; see ``CONFIGURATION FILE FOR TLMGR'' for details.
The other toggles are all off by default: for debugging output, to disable the automatic installation of new packages, and to disable the automatic removal of packages deleted from the server. Playing with the choices of what is or isn't installed may lead to an inconsistent TeX Live installation; e.g., when a package is renamed.
The final action is to remove the entire TeX Live installation (also not on Windows).
Currently this option only applies to the update, install, and ``option'' actions.
fieldname "\t" value ... "end-of-header" pkgname status localrev serverrev size runtime esttot ... "end-of-updates" other output from post actions, not in machine readable form
The header section currently has two fields: "location-url" (the repository source from which updates are being drawn), and "total-bytes" (the total number of bytes to be downloaded).
The localrev and serverrev fields for each package are the revision numbers in the local installation and server repository, respectively. The size field is the number of bytes to be downloaded, i.e., the size of the compressed tar file for a network installation, not the unpacked size. The runtime and esttot fields are only present for updated and auto-install packages, and contain the currently passed time since start of installation/updates and the estimated total time.
Line endings may be either LF or CRLF depending on the current platform.
Then comes a line with only the literal string "end-of-header".
Each following line until a line with literal string "end-of-updates" reports on one package. The fields on each line are separated by a tab. Here are the fields.
key "\t" value
If a value is not saved in the database the string "(not set)" is shown.
If you are developing a program that uses this output, and find that changes would be helpful, do not hesitate to write the mailing list.