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MacTeX | Donate | FAQ | Help | TUG
To obtain the distribution, click the link below. | |||
While downloading, please skim read the rest of the page. | |||
Users who run into trouble often write us without noticing that the solution is on this very page. | |||
All install packages are developer-signed and notarized by Apple.
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MacTeX-2020 requires macOS 10.13, 10.14, or 10.15 | |||
High Sierra, Mojave, or Catalina
MacTeX.pkg [ approximately 4.0G - 08 April 2020 ] The MD5 sum is f20cf74887e5fee800f78953bfbf6a01 The SHA256 sum is a33af89de36c7c84a76050c9704d50d23892e9c2070f04f6a53e1c6d5a332f67 The SHA512 sum is f57c64c8c3c7a33e83dbb28c6ebc7e0fa64c9054deb69ca78f70a0f171b9ccf13221bd7b8008e944aae5b3347b5f631ec412e85585601e77356646ed94c644bd Download with Safari strongly recommended | |||
Installing MacTeX
After downloading, move the file MacTeX.pkg to the desktop or another convenient spot, and double click it to install. Follow the straightforward instructions. Installation on a recent Macintosh takes about ten minutes. The installer presents a Welcome page. Then it presents a ReadMe page with more information. It presents a Software License page, and then a Final Page; clicking the "Install" button on this page will start the actual installation. The final page also has a ''Customize" button, which leads to a panel allowing users to decide which pieces to install: Ghostscript, the Ghostscript Library, the GUI applications, and TeX Live itself. Most users will take the standard installation and ignore "Customize". Users who use MacPorts or HomeBrew may prefer to use the Ghostscript provided by these projects; if so they should use "Customize" to disable Ghostscript installation. At the end of installation, the installer will report "Success." But sometimes, the installer puts up a dialog saying "Verifying..." and then the install hangs. In all cases known to us, rebooting the Macintosh fixes this problem. After the reboot, install again. If other problems are reported during installation, skip to the section "Installation Errors" below. MacTeX writes a symbolic link /Library/TeX/texbin which indirectly points to the TeX Live binary directory. Configure your GUI programs to use this link. The GUI programs we supply should automatically configure themselves. On older systems, you may have seen the link /usr/texbin which did the same thing. When Apple produced El Capitan, they modified the system so users could no longer write directly to the /usr directory and this rule remains in effect today. Therefore we replaced /usr/texbin with /Library/TeX/texbin. MacTeX installs TeX Live, the actual TeX Distribution, in /usr/local/texlive/2020, a location often hidden in the Finder. Most users access TeX using a "front end", a program providing an editor to enter TeX source and a preview window to view the typeset output. MacTeX installs the front end TeXShop in /Applications/TeX and most people will access TeX using that front end or a similar one. MacTeX installs a file called READ-ME-FIRST in ``/Applications/TeX/Docs and Spell Utilities''. This file explains how to start TeXShop and enter and then typeset a short sample document. MacTeX does not overwrite the TeX Distribution from the previous year. Users who run into trouble can switch to the previous distribution until the new distribution is fixed. Long ago we installed a Preference Pane which could do this switching, but this functionality is now in TeX Live Utility, which is in /Applications/TeX. To switch, use the Configure menu item "Select Default TeX Live Version." TeX Live Utility is not installed by MacTeX-2020 because its author has not yet signed and notarized the application, but a file named MISSING APPS in /Applications/TeX explains how to obtain it. MacTeX completely configures TeX, so after installation it is ready to use. Go to "/Applications/TeX/Docs and Spell Utilities/READ ME FIRST.pdf" and read this short document to get started. The location "/Applications/TeX/Docs and Spell Utilities/Documents" also contains "What is installed", which lists all the components of MacTeX and their installation locations. MacTeX installs TeX Live, which contains TeX, LaTeX, AMS-TeX, and virtually every TeX-related style file and font. TeX Live is maintained by TeX User Groups across the world. TeX Live is compiled from the same sources for all platforms: Macintosh, Windows, Linux, Unix. MacTeX also the GUI programs TeXShop and LaTeXiT. Two additional GUI programs are often used with TeX Live, BibDesk and TeX Live Utility. But these programs have not been updated for notarization by their authors, so they cannot be included in MacTeX-2020. A brief document installed in /Applications/TeX lists urls where these programs can be obtained. In particular, TeX Live Utility is constantly mentioned on these web pages for configuration of TeX Live, so users are urged to obtain that program. MacTeX installs Ghostscript, an open source version of Postscript. An optional package installs libgs, the dynamical library for Ghostscript. That library is used by only one program in TeX Live, dvisvgm. So it is not installed by default, but can be obtained using the ``custom install'' option in MacTeX. | |||
Updating from an Earlier MacTeX Installation
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