The Base Package of AsTeX includes:

• Plain TeX, AMSTeX, LaTeX 2.09, LaTeXe and TeXinfo;
• emTeX, the set of compilers, drivers and utilities for TeX, LaTeX and Metafont, by E.MATTES;
• dvips, the driver of PostScript printer by T.ROKICKI;
• Ghostscript, the interpreter of PostScript code, by L.P.DEUTSCH;
• PrintPS, frontal for Ghostscript which makes it possible to divide into sheets PostScript documents under DOS (similar of GSview for Windows);
• Gnuplot, the programme of interactive layout of 2D and 3D scientific curves, by C.KELLEY and T.WILLIAMS;
• Display, the programme of display, handling and conversion of bitmap images, by JIH-SHIN HO;
• TeX Shell, the interface of J.SCHLEGELMILCH, to switch from a program to another and to edit your texts; it integrates an on line help for TeX and LaTeX.
• Many LaTeX styles, among which ChemTeX which makes it possible to write chemical formulas;
• Graphic utilities for TeX and LaTeX;
• Everything necessary to use TeX, AMSTeX, LaTeX and TeXinfo in French: dm fonts by W. SULLIVAN, french formats, Fr style;
• MakeFmts, program to create interactively French formats of all types (for Plain TeX, AMSTeX, LaTeX 2.09/LaTeXe, with Small or Big TeX and fonts cm, dm or ec, etc) under DOS or Windows;
• Utilities to archive, compress, convert files from one format to another, etc;
• Character fonts (cm, symbols of the AMS, Cyrillic) in Metafont form;
• MakeFont, utility to create pk fonts and to display / print tables of characters of any Metafont fonts (cm, ec, AMS etc.) and virtual fonts dm and PostScript Adobe;
• Handbooks in electronic form;
• General documentation on TeX, LaTeX, Internet, etc;
• The AsTeX software, which is a set of programs to install, configure and interfacing for the other programs of the distribution.