CTeX-kit

July 9, 2026 · View on GitHub

CTeX-kit is a collection of TeX/LaTeX macro packages, scripts, and resources for Chinese typesetting. Maintained by the CTeX community, it brings together ctex, xeCJK, zhspacing, and other components to provide unified, reliable Chinese typesetting infrastructure across different TeX engines.

Core Packages

Package	CTAN Version	Description
ctex		Chinese document classes and package bundle — font configuration, heading schemes, and multi-engine adaptation
xeCJK		CJK font management, character spacing, and punctuation kerning for XeLaTeX

Satellite Packages

Package	CTAN Version	Description
CJKpunct		CJK punctuation kerning and spacing
xCJK2uni		Legacy CJK encoding to Unicode mapping
xpinyin		Automatic pinyin annotation for Chinese characters
zhnumber		Chinese number and date formatting
zhlineskip		Automatic line spacing adjustment for CJK–Latin mixed text
zhspacing		Automatic CJK–Latin inter-character spacing (LuaTeX approach)
zhmetrics		Chinese font metrics
zhmetrics-uptex		Chinese font metrics for upTeX

Quick Start

Installation

All packages are included in TeX Live and MiKTeX — no manual installation is needed. To use the development version, clone this repository directly.

Basic Usage

Using the ctexart document class:

\documentclass{ctexart}
\begin{document}
你好，\LaTeX{}！
\end{document}

Using the ctex package with a standard document class:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ctex}
\begin{document}
你好，\LaTeX{}！
\end{document}

Supported engines: XeLaTeX, LuaLaTeX, pdfLaTeX (with CJK package), and upLaTeX. XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX is recommended for the best experience.

Repository Structure

ctex-kit/
├── ctex/              # Core: Chinese document classes and packages
├── xeCJK/             # Core: XeLaTeX CJK support
├── CJKpunct/          # CJK punctuation kerning
├── xCJK2uni/          # CJK encoding conversion
├── xpinyin/           # Pinyin annotation
├── zhnumber/          # Chinese numbers
├── zhlineskip/        # Line spacing adjustment
├── zhspacing/         # CJK–Latin spacing
├── zhmetrics/         # Font metrics
├── zhmetrics-uptex/   # upTeX font metrics
├── jiazhu/            # Interlinear annotation (jiazhu)
├── gbk2uni/           # GBK→Unicode conversion tool
├── gbkmac/            # GBK encoding support (macOS)
├── zh-luatex/         # LuaTeX Chinese experimental support
├── support/           # Shared build configuration and support files
└── .github/           # CI/CD configuration

Building and Testing

This project uses l3build as its build and test framework.

# Run ctex test suite
cd ctex
l3build check

# Run xeCJK test suite
cd xeCJK
l3build check

# Build CTAN release package
l3build ctan

CI tests against the current TeX Live release on Ubuntu, macOS, and Windows, covering five test suites: ctex, xeCJK, zhnumber, CJKpunct, and zhlineskip.

Technology Stack

Programming framework: LaTeX3 / expl3
Literate programming: docstrip (.dtx source files)
Build system: l3build
CI/CD: GitHub Actions (testing + automated releases)

Contributing

Bug reports via Issues and code contributions via Pull Requests are welcome.

Before submitting code, please ensure:

All relevant tests pass (l3build check)
Code follows expl3 conventions
Changes to .dtx files include \changes entries
After editing \changes, regenerate the package's CHANGELOG.md with make changelog (or cd <pkg> && python3 ../scripts/extract-changes.py "*.dtx" all -o CHANGELOG.md) and commit it together; without a local Python, copy the expected content from the failed check-changelog CI log

License

Packages in this project are released under the LPPL v1.3c (LaTeX Project Public License).