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The Most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)



Click on the Q# to jump to the question and answer


MacTeX Q&A : getting or installing MacTeX

QM.01: Trouble completing the installation process.
QM.02: No need to uninstall previous TeX distribution
QM.03: When trying to typeset, my front end puts up a dialog claiming that it cannot find tex (or pdfLaTeX, or XeTeX)
QM.04: HomeBrew and MacPort Questions
QM.05: Where to put personal additions in the texmf tree
QM.06: Why can't the latest MacTeX find my local BibTeX (.bst, .bib) files
QM.07: Where can I obtain and download older versions of MacTeX?
TeXShop Questions
QT.01: Typesetting in TeXShop gives an error message related to (/usr/texbin)
QT.02: TeXShop refuses to start, or behaves strangely
QT.03: Damaged Macros Folder



MacTeX Q&A

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QM.01: I am having trouble completing the installation process. How can I get MacTeX installed?

AM.01:

One common problem is that users obtain a corrupted MacTeX.pkg after downloading the large file. There is an easy way to check that your download was successful. Run Apple's Terminal application in /Applications/Utilities. After the prompt, type the command

md5

and a space, and then drag and drop the file MacTeX.pkg to the Terminal window to complete the command. Push Return. The Mac will compute an "md5 checksum". This sum should be the sum shown at the top of the downloading page here.

Some users downloading with Google Chrome and possibly other browsers report defective downloads. We recommend downloading with Safari. Users with problems also report success after downloading via the torrent network.

Defective downloads are essentially never due to a bad file on the server because we test after uploading new versions. But users with download problems sometimes succeed after trying an alternate CTAN site. To do this, check 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-2024 on a DVD and loan you the DVD.

A final solution, if all else fails, is to go to smallerdownload and download BasicTeX; this distribution is quite complete and serviceable and the smaller download may cause fewer problems. You will also need a front end like TeXShop or those included in MacTeXtras.


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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/2024, and does not overwrite the old distribution. Consult the documentation for your older distribution to uninstall it, if you want to save space.

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QM.03: When trying to typeset, my front end puts up a dialog claiming that it cannot find tex (or pdfLaTeX, or XeTeX)

AM.03: Some users have installed software which incorrectly set the permissions on /usr/local. To see if you have this problem, open Terminal in /Applications/Utilities. Type

ls -l /usr

and push RETURN (note that "-l" is a small el, not a number). Terminal will print a list of folders. Look at the entry named "local". The permissions at the start of this line should be

drwxr-xr-x

If instead they are "drwx------" then carefully type the following line in Terminal:

sudo chmod 755 /usr/local

You will be asked to supply your Login password.

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QM.04: Homebrew (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 Homebrew or MacPorts run instead of the versions in TeX Live.
(c) pdftex runs erratically.

AM.04abc: MacTeX installs a symbolic link to the TeX Live binaries named /Library/TeX/texbin. Calling /Library/TeX/texbin/pdftex will reach the pdftex in TeX Live. Once this version runs, it will not be confused by the presence of Homebrew 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 /Library/TeX/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 /Library/TeX/texbin to the beginning of your PATH.


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QM.05 : Where do I put my personal additions to the texmf tree?

AM.05: 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.

On Lion and above, the ~/Library folder is hidden. To open it, use the Finder's Go menu and hold down the Option key to reveal an extra item in the menu.


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QM.06 : Why can't the latest MacTeX find my local BibTeX files? Earlier versions of MacTeX worked correctly.

AM.06 : 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.

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QM.07 : Where can I obtain and download older versions of MacTeX?

AM.07 :

To Obtain Older Versions of MacTeX If You Are Running macOS 10.3 through 10.11, click here




TeXShop Questions

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QT.01: Typesetting in TeXShop gives an error message:
"Can't find required tool. /usr/local/texlive/bin/x86_64-darwin does not exist. Perhaps TeX Live 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-2024. If you installed with MacTeX, you will not see this error.

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QT.02: TeXShop refuses to start, or behaves strangely. Or, for example, you get the message: 
           "/usr/texbin/altpdflatex does not exist.
           Perhaps TeX Live was not installed or was removed during a system upgrade."

AT.02: There may be a damaged TeXShop preferences file. Quit TeXShop. Then before starting TeXShop again, move the file
~/Library/Preferences/TeXShop.plist
to your desktop. Then start TeXShop. If this fixes the problem, reset your preferences as desired.

Make sure you are using the latest version of TeXShop


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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.



Happy TeXing on macOS !

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