# rstudio/tinytex

A lightweight, cross-platform, portable, and easy-to-maintain LaTeX distribution based on TeX Live

Repository: https://github.com/rstudio/tinytex
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/tinytex
Homepage: https://yihui.org/tinytex/
Language: R
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: latex, texlive, r-package
Last push: 2026-08-19T11:02:58+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 91/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 77, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3212, "days_push": 14, "days_rel": 78, "gap_med": 79, "n_releases_24m": 8}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1152, forks 127 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:46.836247+00:00)

## What it is
TinyTeX is a lightweight, portable LaTeX distribution based on TeX Live that installs only needed packages, paired with an R package providing wrapper functions for compiling LaTeX and R Markdown to PDF. It automatically installs missing LaTeX packages, making PDF compilation nearly invisible to R users.

## Use cases
- compile r markdown to pdf
- install a lightweight latex distribution
- automatically install missing latex packages
- compile latex documents without admin privileges
- set up latex in ci pipelines
- run latex from a usb drive

## When to choose
- you are an R or R Markdown user who needs PDF output without managing LaTeX
- you want a small, portable TeX Live install without sudo
- you need LaTeX in CI or cloud environments with minimal download size

## When to avoid
- you need the full set of thousands of LaTeX packages installed locally
- you work outside R and dislike manually installing missing packages
- you already maintain a full TeX Live or MiKTeX installation

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: developer-tools, documentation, pdf
- domain: developer-tools, documentation, pdf, cross-platform
- platform: windows, cross-platform
- tags: latex, texlive, r-package, pdf-generation, rmarkdown, linux, macos, r

## Member repositories
- rstudio/tinytex (main) score 91

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:46.836247+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:33:34.100389+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/rstudio/tinytex (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:46.836247+00:00, sha 540f2925b493)
  - homepage: https://yihui.org/tinytex/ (fetched 2026-08-29T12:38:17.613418+00:00, sha 5e8132e75053)
  - site_page: https://yihui.org/tinytex/faq (fetched 2026-08-29T12:38:17.616129+00:00, sha b13ecfae972d)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.