The Full MacTeX
The full MacTeX-2023 install package contains four pieces
TeX Live 2023: the full distribution with over 4 gigabytes
of material.
GUI Applications: front ends, utilities,
and a small amount of startup documentation.
Ghostscript 10.0.0
The Ghostscript library libgs, used by only one program in TeX Live, dvisvgm.
A Smaller Distribution, Basic TeX
TUG recommends the full MacTeX, even for beginners. It contains all files most users ever need. Beginners using it don't face
the daunting task of searching for missing components and figuring out how to install them in the TeX distribution.
BasicTeX is a much smaller alternate TeX Distribution for users who do not want to download the full TeX Live, or have unreliable internet connections. It contains all of the standard tools needed to write TeX documents, including TeX, LaTeX, pdfTeX, MetaFont, dvips, MetaPost, and XeTeX. BasicTeX does not overwrite the full distribution; it is installed in /usr/local/texlive/2023basic.
BasicTeX only contains the TeX Live piece of the full distribution; it does not contain GUI programs or Ghostscript. To use TeX on the Mac, it suffices to install BasicTeX and a front end. To make life easier for users who want to use BasicTeX instead of the full TeX Live, we include links below to various pieces of
MacTeX that can be added as needed.
Click the following link to obtain Basic TeX:
BasicTeX.pkg.
BasicTeX.pdf (Basic TeX documentation).
The Size is
90M - 14 March 2023
The MD5 sum is
5951710bdf3367c364fe19fde03f2273
The SHA512 sum is
2d0d811f3e8f30796ecd8885c6eea6b4f64835fa75cfd94c9320a630e5526898b270275dabe8b873d362eccfd7a85e2a3f2f53a6ae01236024168b351d27ef73
GUI Programs and Documentation from MacTeX
The GUI section of MacTeX contains four front ends and utilities.
These programs are often updated, so it is best to get them directly
from their respective web pages. Here are links:
TeXShop, a front end: TeXShop.
LaTeXiT, a package which typesets equations to be pasted into Keynote, etc.: LaTeXiT.
TeX Live Utility, a program to update and maintain TeX Live: TeX Live Utility.
BibDesk, a program to handle bibliographies: BibDesk.
Ghostscript 10.0.0 from MacTeX
Ghostscript is not required to run TeX (pdfLaTeX, XeTeX, etc.), but is often
useful for converting eps illustrations to other formats, or processing
dvi files. This link gives the full install package:
Ghostscript.pkg.
The Size is
53M - 19 February 2023
The MD5 sum is
b404c4c85b3d13f1ccf18f4d0447f912
The SHA512 sum is
6738da6f7972c1b55aef8210880c47dd1a70d812ed0d6ec67d938abbd57d346e40e193565a825aa1fb6f148b46a7b7c6dde38bb7d0ad222cfdd08cca9d91a037
