---
layout: page
menu: Latex3
title: "The LaTeX Project"
description: "Home of the LaTeX project, a project to maintain and develop the LaTeX typesetting system."
permalink: /latex3/
---

# The LaTeX Project (aka LaTeX3 Project)

The LaTeX project maintains and develops the LaTeX typesetting
system. In a <a
href="{{site.baseurl}}/help/documentation/ltx3info.pdf"
target="_blank"
onclick="vgwPixelCall('51fc82f5083e42e49d51d818c781d70b');">separate
article</a> we provide a more detailed description of what we aim to
achieve and how you can help us to achieve the project goals. Some
older reports from the early days of the project (mainly of
historical interest) are available from the Comprehensive TeX
Archive Network (CTAN) as
[ltx3pub](https://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/ltx3pub). More recent
work is available from this site as
[articles]({{site.baseurl}}/publications/) (in PDF format) and
information about the current [development code can be found on a
separate page]({{site.baseurl}}/latex3/code/).

The experience gained from the production and maintenance of LaTeX2e
(the version you have been using for many years) had a major influence on our
goals for future development and on new code which is now integrated
into LaTeX.

A while ago we made the decision to drop the idea of a separate LaTeX3
format that would exist in parallel to LaTeX2e, but instead decided to gradually modernize
LaTeX to keep it competitive in today's world while maintaining
compatibility methods for older documents.

As part of this change of focus the following major improvements have
been introduced in the last few years:
+ 2018: Full support for Unicode input; UTF-8 became the default encoding
  in LaTeX;
+ 2019: Introduction of the LaTeX development formats to allow people to
   try out upcoming releases with ease;
+ 2020: Integration of the `L3 programming layer` into the LaTeX
     format; the first uses of this layer inside the format are a new general hook management system
     for LaTeX, and the `xparse` document commands (formerly available as a package);<br>
     Interface extensions to NFSS (The LaTeX font
     selection scheme) to better support modern fonts (OpenType and
     others).


At the TUG conference 2020 we also announced the start of a multi-year 
project (financially supported in part by Adobe) to provide  LaTeX 
support for the straightforward production of ‘tagged PDF’.  This form 
of PDF is required to support "Accessibility" (as in the PDF/UA 
standard) and other uses of PDF that require structural information.


For more details about this project take a look at our [page on accessibility and
tagging]({{site.baseurl}}/publications/indexbytopic/pdf/), in
particular the two articles
<a href="{{site.baseurl}}/publications/2020-FMi-TUB-tb128mitt-quovadis.pdf" target="_blank" onclick="vgwPixelCall('a0b5f4cd18144b338d5a36e2651f2cce');">"Quo vadis LaTeX(3) Team — A look back and at the upcoming years"</a>
and
<a href="{{site.baseurl}}/publications/2020-FMi-TUB-tb129mitt-tagpdf.pdf" target="_blank" onclick="vgwPixelCall('be7595c59bf34ca8b4366dfa05816e17');">"LaTeX Tagged PDF — A blueprint for a large project"</a>
as well as the
<a href="{{site.baseurl}}/publications/2020-tagged-pdf-feasibility.pdf" target="_blank" onclick="vgwPixelCall('c1e17b6fed7b4e0fac9032b4aad469c9');">"LaTeX Tagged PDF Feasibility Evaluation Study"</a>.
Updates and status reports will be added there as they become
available.

> We are quite excited about this project, because it offers the chance
> to make LaTeX unique not just for its unsurpassed quality in math
> typesetting, paragraph breaking, etc., but also in future, the ability to
> produce structured documents without manual labor --- so stay tuned on
> the progress.
 
<div class="row">
  <div class="col cell1of2">
    <h2>LaTeX Project Team</h2>
    <p>The current LaTeX project team personnel, with contact details,
    can be found on the <a href="{{ "/about/team" | prepend: site.baseurl }}">Team Page</a>.
    </p>
  </div>
  <div class="col cell1of2">
    <h2>Support LaTeX Development</h2>
    
    <p>If you want to support LaTeX development, i.e., the <b>maintenance
    efforts for the current version and the work on future release</b>
    by a donation, the best way to do this is donating to the <a
    href="https://www.tug.org/donate.html">TeX Users Group</a>. They
    will make sure that your contribution will be used according to
    your intention (use: LaTeX Project Contribution).</p>
    
  </div>
</div>

<hr>
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<hr>

<div class="row teaser">
  <section class="col cell1of3">
    <a href="{{ "/latex3/code/" | prepend: site.baseurl }}">
      <h3>Development Code</h3>
      <p>LaTeX development code, for experimentation and comments only.</p>
    </a>
  </section>
  <section class="col cell1of3">
    <a href="{{ "/publications/" | prepend: site.baseurl }}">
      <h3>Publications</h3>
      <p>Articles, conference papers, videos etc. published by the LaTeX project.</p>
    </a>
  </section>
  <section class="col cell1of3">
    <a href="https://www.tug.org/donate.html">
      <h3>Donate</h3>
      <p>To support LaTeX maintenance and development, donate to the TeX Users Group (LaTeX Project contribution).</p>
    </a>
  </section>
</div>

<hr>

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