QM.01: I am having trouble opening the .zip file or completing the installation process. How can I get MacTeX installed?
AM.01:
One exception occurs if you are running system OS X 10.4 or earlier. Note that MacTeX-2011 will not run on these systems. Some people obtain a corrupted MacTeX.mpkg.zip file after downloading the large file. This is almost never due to a bad file on the server because we test after uploading new versions. One exception occurs if you are running system OS X 10.2. Note that MacTeX will not run on that system.
In case of trouble, we recommend downloading from an alternate CTAN site. To do this, click on one of the links in the mirror page.
If you are at an institution with a large body of TeX users, a support person could put MacTeX-2011 on the DVD and loan you the DVD.
A final solution, if all else fails, is to go to http://www.tug.org/mactex/morepackages.html and download BasicTeX-2010; this distribution is still quite complete and serviceable. The smaller download may cause fewer problems. You will also need the front ends and utilities in MacTeXAdditions.mpkg.zip.
QM.02: Do I need to uninstall my previous TeX distribution before installing MacTeX?
AM.02: No. The TeX Live in MacTeX installs in a new location, /usr/local/texlive/2011, and does not overwrite the old distribution. Consult the documentation for your older distribution to uninstall it, if you want to save space.
QM.03: Fink (or MacPorts) is installed on my computer. After installing MacTeX,
(a) pdfTeX and TeX crash with error messages referring to broken libraries in /sw/... or /opt/...
(b) the versions of pdftex and tex in Fink or MacPorts run instead of the versions in TeX Live.
(c) pdftex runs erratically.
AM.03abc: MacTeX installs a symbolic link to the TeX Live binaries named /usr/texbin. Calling /usr/texbin/pdftex will reach the pdftex in TeX Live. Once this version runs, it will not be confused by the presence of Fink or MacPorts and will use the correct libraries, style files, fonts, and utilities in TeX Live.
The GUI programs shipped with MacTeX understand this symbolic link and automatically call /usr/texbin/pdftex. But if you call pdftex from the Terminal or another application, you may encounter the problem. The solution is simple. Find your shell startup script. That script should contain a command modifying PATH so /sw (or /opt) comes first. After this command, add a line to the script prepending /usr/texbin to the beginning of your PATH.
QM.04: Where do I put my personal additions to the texmf tree?
AM.04: They go in
~/Library/texmf
and various subdirectories structured according to the standard TeX conventions. Here ~/Library is the Library folder in your home directory. You may have to create the texmf folder, and any subfolders of it mentioned below. For instance, TeX will find any file in
~/Library/texmf/tex
or a subfolder of this folder, and LaTeX will find any file in
~/Library/texmf/tex/latex
or a subfolder of this folder. It is not necessary to run texhash when adding files to this local tree.
QM.05: Why can't the latest MacTeX find my local BibTeX files? Earlier versions of MacTeX worked correctly.
AM.05: TeX Live is slightly pickier about placement of these files. ".bib" files go in
~/Library/texmf/bibtex/bib
or subfolders of this directory, and ".bst" files go in
~/Library/texmf/bibtex/bst
or subfolders of this directory.
QM.06: I installed MacTeX and now all of the fonts in my TeX documents are wrong. I checked this in Preview, TeXShop, LaTeXiT, TeXniscope, and other programs. They all display bad fonts, so I must have messed up the installation. Maybe it is because I used custom install and installed the Latin Modern and TeX Gyre fonts.
AM.06: The problem (known as the "font cache bug" in Mac OS X) was fixed in MacTeX-2009 and all later distributions are fine.
QM.07: Does MacTeX-2011 work on Lion?
AM.07:
Yes, it has been extensively tested on Lion.
QT.01: Typesetting in TeXShop gives an error message:
"Can't find required tool. /usr/local/teTeX/bin/apple-powerpc-darwin-current does not exist. Perhaps teTeX was not installed or was removed ..."
AT.01: This error means that TeXShop could not find a TeX distribution. Usually users who see it downloaded TeXShop, but forgot to download TeX itself. The solution is to install TeXLive-2011. If you installed with MacTeX, you will not see this error.
QT.02: TeXShop refuses to start, or behaves strangely. Or, for example, you get the message:
"/usr/texbin/altpdflatex does not exist.
Perhaps teTeX was not installed or was removed during a system upgrade."
AT.02: There may be a damaged TeXShop preferences file. Quit TeXShop, move the file
~/Library/Preferences/TeXShop.plist
to your desktop, and restart. If this fixes the problem, reset your preferences as desired. If not, put the old plist file back to restore your old preferences.
Make sure you are using the latest version of TeXShop
QT.03: TeXShop complains of a damaged Macros file when it starts.
AT.03: There may be a damaged Macros folder in TeXShop's configuration files. Quit TeXShop, move the Macros folder
~/Library/TeXShop/Macros
to the desktop, and restart TeXShop. It will create a new Macros folder with a working Macros file.
