UK TeX FAQ -- question label LaTeX3

### The LaTeX project

The LaTeX project team (see http://www.latex-project.org/latex3.html) is a small group of volunteers whose aim is to produce a major new document processing system based on the principles pioneered by Leslie Lamport in the current LaTeX. The new system is (provisionally) called LaTeX3; it will remain freely available and it will be fully documented at all levels.

The LaTeX team’s first product (LaTeX2e) was delivered in 1994 (it’s now properly called “LaTeX”, since no other version is current).

LaTeX2e was intended as a consolidation exercise, unifying several sub-variants of LaTeX while changing nothing whose change wasn’t absolutely necessary. This has permitted the team to support a single version of LaTeX, in parallel with development of LaTeX3.

Some of the older discussion papers about directions for LaTeX3 are to be found on CTAN; other (published) articles are to be found on the project web site (http://www.latex-project.org/papers/).

Some of the project’s experimental code is visible on the net:

- via http://www.latex-project.org/code.html, which points to the project’s SVN repository;
- via the project’s GitHub mirror;
- from CTAN: snapshots of two major collections from the code, l3kernel (supporting LaTeX3 coding conventions in a LaTeX2e environment), l3packages (a first cut of a “document designer’s interface”) as well as l3experimental (new stuff that’s still under development).

The packages l3kernel and l3packages provide an “experimental harness” that may be used as a testbed for LaTeX3 work.

Note that l3kernel introduces a coding structure quite different from earlier LaTeX code; a few hardy authors, who are not members of the project, are nevertheless using it in their development work.

Anyone may participate in discussions of the future of LaTeX through the mailing list `latex-l`; some development work (outside the project) is discussed on the list. Subscribe to the list by sending a message ‘`subscribe latex-l <your name>`’ to listserv@urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de

`l3experimental bundle`
  macros/latex/contrib/l3experimental (or browse the directory); catalogue entry
`l3kernel bundle`
  macros/latex/contrib/l3kernel (or browse the directory); catalogue entry
`LaTeX project publications`
  info/ltx3pub (or browse the directory); catalogue entry
`l3packages bundle`
  macros/latex/contrib/l3packages (or browse the directory); catalogue entry

This answer last edited: 2012-02-07

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