📚 CTAN TeX Packages Scraper

🚀 Export the full CTAN catalog of TeX and LaTeX packages in seconds. Caption, authors, license, version, topics, and install paths.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-06-05 · 📊 15 fields per record · 6,000+ TeX packages · No login required

The CTAN TeX Packages Scraper turns the public ctan.org/json/2.0/packages index into a structured dataset. It lists every package and optionally hydrates each entry with the per-package detail endpoint so you get authors, license, version, and topic metadata in one shot.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
🎓 Academic publishers	Audit which packages typesetters use
📚 Documentation teams	Find a package for a given task
🛡️ Compliance	License audits across TeX distributions
📊 Researchers	Study TeX ecosystem trends
👩‍💻 Maintainers	Mirror CTAN metadata into your tools
🧪 Curious users	Browse the LaTeX universe

📋 What the CTAN TeX Packages Scraper does

• Fetches the canonical https://ctan.org/json/2.0/packages index.
• Optionally hydrates each package with /json/2.0/pkg/{key} for full details.
• Flattens author records to display-name strings.
• Filters by substring search against key, name, or caption.
• Surfaces upstream errors as a single diagnostic record.
• Exports to every Apify dataset format.

💡 Why it matters: CTAN is the canonical TeX archive but its detail endpoint is one-request-per-package. This actor pipelines those calls so you get a SQL-ready table out the other side.

🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon.

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
maxItems	integer	No	Free 10. Paid up to 1,000,000.
search	string	No	Substring match against key, name, or caption.
hydrate	boolean	No	If true, fetch the detail JSON for each package. Default true.

Example 1. TikZ family packages.

{ "search": "tikz", "maxItems": 25 }

Example 2. Fast index-only run.

{ "hydrate": false, "maxItems": 1000 }

⚠️ Good to Know: Hydration costs one HTTP request per package. Disable it for fast catalog snapshots.

📊 Output

Field	Type	Description
🆔 key	string	CTAN package key.
📛 name	string	Display name.
📝 caption	string	Short description.
⚖️ license	string	License identifier.
🔢 version	string	Latest version number.
📅 versionDate	string	Latest version date.
👥 authors	array	Author display names.
©️ copyright	object	Copyright record.
📝 descriptions	array	Localized descriptions.
🏷️ topics	array	Topic keys.
🔗 ctan	string	CTAN package page URL.
📂 install	string	Install path.
🏠 home	string	Upstream homepage.
📖 documentation	array	Documentation links.
🕒 scrapedAt	string	When this row was fetched.
❌ error	string	Set on upstream error.

{
  "key": "tikz",
  "name": "TikZ",
  "caption": "Create PostScript and PDF graphics in TeX",
  "license": "lppl",
  "version": "3.1.10",
  "authors": ["Till Tantau"],
  "ctan": "https://ctan.org/pkg/tikz",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-05T12:00:00.000Z",
  "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

| 🆓 | Public CTAN endpoint, no key required. | | 🔎 | Substring search across multiple fields. | | 📚 | Optional detail hydration in a single run. | | 🛟 | Clean diagnostic records on errors. | | 💾 | Push to dataset for instant export. |

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Setup	Detail hydration	Auto export
Browse ctan.org	manual	manual	❌
Roll your own fetch	30 min +	manual	manual
This Actor	5 sec	✅	✅

🚀 How to use

1. Click Try for free.
2. Optionally set a search filter.
3. Toggle hydrate for full detail.
4. Click Start and download the dataset.

💼 Business use cases

🎓 Curriculum planning. Snapshot every package a course depends on.

📚 Publisher audits. Track license obligations across a manuscript pipeline.

📊 Ecosystem analytics. Study TeX adoption.

🚀 Distribution tooling. Drive an internal CTAN mirror.

🔌 Automating CTAN TeX Packages Scraper

• Make and Zapier trigger this actor on a schedule.
• Cron keeps your mirror fresh.
• Webhooks notify on completion.
• Pipe to BigQuery, Snowflake, or Postgres with native integrations.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

🎓 Education. Show students how the TeX ecosystem is organized.

🧪 Personal research. Track your favorite typesetting topic.

🤝 Non-profit and open data. Publish a CTAN dashboard.

🧰 Tinkering. Find a TeX package fast.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Pop this README into ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI assistant and ask it to map your specific workflow to the actor's inputs.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

❓ Need an API key? No.

❓ Source? Official CTAN public JSON API.

❓ Schedule runs? Yes.

❓ Hydration? Optional.

❓ API or scraping? API.

❓ Schema stability? Stable.

❓ Maximum run? 1,000,000 records on paid plans.

❓ Author shape? Display-name string per author.

❓ Topic shape? Array of topic keys.

❓ Download formats? Any Apify dataset format.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Apify ships native integrations with Make, Zapier, Slack, Discord, Google Drive, Google Sheets, Gmail, Airbyte, Keboola, Telegram, GitHub, and any REST API or webhook endpoint.

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Disclaimer. This actor scrapes only publicly available data. ParseForge is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by CTAN. Users are responsible for complying with the target site's terms of service and applicable law. Create a free account w/ $5 credit.