The Distutils documentation is supplied as two manuals: Installing Python Modules (aimed at system administrators, end-users, and Python programmers who need to add new goodies to their Python installation) Distributing Python Modules (aimed at module developers who want to share their goodies with the rest of the world in the standard way) These manuals are a standard part of the Python 2.0 documentation set, and are tightly integrated with the standard Python documentation tools. That means that you won't be able to process the LaTeX files here without downloading the latest Python documentation tools. Since these two manuals are now included with the Python documentation (CVS version as of 28 April 2000), there's really not much point in trying to process the manuals provided here. You're better off checking out the latest Python documentation -- which is included in the Python source, when you access it via CVS -- and starting from there. For information on getting access to the Python source and documentation via CVS, see https://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=5470 If all you really want to do is *read* the documentation, you don't need to process it yourself: see http://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/doc/ for access to the (roughly) current Distutils documentation, in PDF, PostScript, and HTML.