tug.ctan.org archive features
                     =============================

This archive has a number of features that you may find useful.  (Note: if
you are new to TeX and just want to get going, see our page for that at 
http://www.ctan.org/starter.html or see the TeX Users Group's page at 
http://www.tug.org/begin.html .)

1) You can access this site in two ways.
  * Over the web at  http://tug.ctan.org
  * Via FTP at ftp://tug.ctan.org
The web interface has a number of advantages, such as search functions, that 
most of our visitors prefer.

2) We have many mirrors, sites that offer the same files that we do.  You may 
find that using a mirror is faster or cheaper.  In addition, if you use a 
mirror then that helps us out because it reduces our network load.  See the 
complete list here.
  http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/README.mirrors
(If you use this archive's web interface then when you ask to download a 
file then you will get a page asking you to choose a mirror, which is 
another reason that most of our visitors prefer to visit us over the web.)

3) You may find that you want to download a package of material, which is 
typically a number of files.  To help you get all of the needed files, we 
have made .zip files of the most-commonly requested materials.  These .zip's 
are in the directory above the package.  For instance, to get the entire 
contents of the directory 
  http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/shadethm
you can download this single file
  http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/shadethm.zip
(this site's web interface will tell you when there is a .zip of the material
in the directory that you are viewing). 

4) If network access is a problem for you, or if you use a laptop that is not
always near an Internet connection, then you may be interested in the getting
our holdings on CD-ROM.  The TeX Users Group offers these as a benefit of 
membership
  http://www.tug.org/aims_ben.html
or for separate purchase. 
  http://www.tug.org/store/  
Other users groups have similar benefits; look for one near you here.
  http://www.tug.org/usergroups.html

5) You can be notified by email about updates to our holdings by subscribing 
to the ctan-announcements mailing list.
  https://lists.dante.de/mailman/listinfo/ctan-ann@dante.de 
These announcements also appear in the usenet discussion group comp.text.tex .
  http://groups.google.com/group/comp.text.tex?gvc=2&hl=en
You can see and search past postings to our announcement list.
  http://www.mail-archive.com/ctan-ann@dante.de/
  http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tex.ctan.announce
In addition, there is an RSS feed.
  http://www.mail-archive.com/ctan-ann@dante.de/maillist.xml

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This file is README.archive-features.  It was last updated on 2005-Oct-08 by 
Jim Hefferon, ftpmaint (at) tug.ctan.org .