diff --git a/katex.js b/katex.js
index 232d9dd1..7b9700e8 100644
--- a/katex.js
+++ b/katex.js
@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@ import type ParseNode from "./src/ParseNode";
 
 import { defineSymbol } from './src/symbols';
 
+import { version } from "./package.json";
+
 /**
  * Parse and build an expression, and place that expression in the DOM node
  * given.
@@ -97,6 +99,10 @@ const renderToHTMLTree = function(
 };
 
 export default {
+    /**
+     * Current KaTeX version
+     */
+    version,
     /**
      * Renders the given LaTeX into an HTML+MathML combination, and adds
      * it as a child to the specified DOM node.
diff --git a/release.sh b/release.sh
index 21fa2b27..b26f3c36 100755
--- a/release.sh
+++ b/release.sh
@@ -102,6 +102,12 @@ git checkout "$BRANCH"
 git pull
 git checkout --detach
 
+# Edit package.json and bower.json to the right version (see
+# http://stackoverflow.com/a/22084103 for why we need the .bak file to make
+# this mac & linux compatible)
+sed -i.bak -E 's|"version": "[^"]+",|"version": "'$VERSION'",|' package.json
+rm -f package.json.bak
+
 # Build generated files and add them to the repository (for bower)
 git clean -fdx build dist
 npm run dist
@@ -109,12 +115,6 @@ sed -i.bak -E '/^\/dist\/$/d' .gitignore
 rm -f .gitignore.bak
 git add .gitignore dist/
 
-# Edit package.json and bower.json to the right version (see
-# http://stackoverflow.com/a/22084103 for why we need the .bak file to make
-# this mac & linux compatible)
-sed -i.bak -E 's|"version": "[^"]+",|"version": "'$VERSION'",|' package.json
-rm -f package.json.bak
-
 # Update the version number in CDN URLs included in the README files,
 # and regenerate the Subresource Integrity hash for these files.
 node update-sri.js "${VERSION}" README.md contrib/*/README.md dist/README.md