                     LaTeX Patches Guide
                      
                         2015/01/01

                           
This document describes the procedure by which changes to the LaTeX
distribution in between major releases could be made.

Such changes will be made only when major problems are discovered and
fixed.

Changes which affect the file latex.ltx, and hence the format, are
called `patches to the LaTeX kernel': this concept is described in
detail below.  The changes of this type are described briefly at the
end of this file, in chronological order.

All changes to all files should be listed, in reverse-time order, in
the files called changes.txt: there is one in each distribution
subdirectory.


Patches to the LaTeX kernel
===========================

Between major releases of LaTeX it may be necessary to make small
updates to fix major problems.

We have made it relatively easy to install updates that affect only
the format---by placing all these changes in one file, called
ltpatch.ltx.

In practice due to changing distribution mechanisms since LaTeX2e was
first released we do not now expect to use this patch mechanism, if a
major problem were to be discovered a new updated LaTeX distribution
would be placed on CTAN and distributed via the usual TeX distribution
channels.

In order to update your LaTeX format you should put 
ltpatch.ltx where it can be read by iniTeX and then run iniTeX on
latex.ltx.  You do not need to unpack the latex sources again.

In this run of iniTeX, the file ltpatch.ltx (if it exists) will be
read just before the format file is `dumped'.  This will correct any
bugs and it will modify the opening banner of LaTeX: for example,
from:

LaTeX2e <2015/01/01>

to:

LaTeX2e <2015/01/01> patch level 1


(The ltpatch.ltx distributed with this  `full' release of LaTeX
 is `patch level 0' which does not change the banner.)


--- Copyright 1993-2015
    The LaTeX3 Project.  All rights reserved ---

