TeX on Windows?

Dr Alan Litchfield alan at alphabyte.co.nz
Tue May 25 06:15:45 CEST 2021


Most years I have to help students with installing LaTeX, etc onto their 
PCs (I use a Mac).

As with them, I suggest you go to 
https://ctan.org/tex-archive/systems/texlive/Images

Download the iso image and mount it onto your computer. This page 
describes what to do:

https://tug.org/texlive/quickinstall.html

Go to the mounted image and run install-tl-windows.exe this will 
probably install TeXWorks but people seem to like TeXStudio 
(https://www.texstudio.org). I have never used PCTeX so can't comment on 
similarities.

HIH

Alan

On 25/05/21 11:23 am, Robert Jantzen wrote:
>
> Dear TUG,
>
> I have been an individual sustaining member of TUG for over 30 years. 
> In my early days at Villanova University in the 80s and early 90s, I 
> ran a local “Delaware Valley TUG” with monthly meetings during 
> semesters and Anita Schwartz used to attend occasionally when she was 
> active with the national TUG leadership. Barbara Beeton saved me with 
> crucial help on a table of contents macro that I created last century 
> for a triennial general relativity meeting whose monster proceedings I 
> edited since then
> http://www34.homepage.villanova.edu/robert.jantzen/mg/procs/index.htm 
> <http://www34.homepage.villanova.edu/robert.jantzen/mg/procs/index.htm> 
> (thanks Barbara!)
> We even had a local Tex Wizzard workshop with Stephan Bechtolsheim 
> (ancient history, but Barbara will remember him). Last century of 
> course. Time marches on.
>
> I have been happily using PCTeX all these years, and will continue to 
> do so but it seems like PCTeX has left us in the past two years since 
> I communicated with someone there at the company. Does anyone know 
> what happened to them?
> https://www.pctex.com/ <https://www.pctex.com/> website seems abandoned
>
> Is there any other for pay product to replace it?
>
> On my previous work laptop at Villanova University (which for many 
> years was an institutional member) I had managed to install both 
> MikTex and TexnicCenter, the latter interface advised by my TeXpert 
> friend at the university of Rome, but when I tried to put them on my 
> new laptop 2 years ago, I ran into a problem and gave up.
>
> Yesterday a friend emailed me about his friend and collaborator 
> working on publishing unpublished work by a famous physicist, having 
> trouble with MikTex not finding the right folder… but I am NOT a 
> software guy, just a simple user. Nevertheless I downloaded and 
> installed from scratch MikTeX then TexnicCenter and opened the latter 
> to configure it, but it derailed when I had to put in the folder 
> address of the MikTex latex files.
>
> I searched for the MikTex “bin” folder  but found no trace of these 
> new files I downloaded and installed yesterday, and only MikTex 2.9 
> from 2019, but no “bin” folder. I tried to delete both programs 
> (MikTex appeared in the list from my installation yesterday), but 
> MikTex 2.9 won’t be deleted. It reports an error. My university Help 
> Desk also could not delete it, so currently an open Help Desk ticket 
> has been opened for this. TeXworks still will typeset a simple file. Hmm.
>
> My friend in Rome told me exactly the folder address I needed for 
> TeXnicCenter to configure itself
>
> "<folder_where_you_instelled_MikTeX>\miktex\bin\x64\"
>
> (e.g. "C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\x64\")
>
> Unfortunately such a folder I could not find! He told me TexnicCenter 
> is frozen for 6-7 years already but he still uses it because he 
> prefers the interface. There is also TexWorks for me to try within 
> MikTeX yet but not with the latest MikTex distribution until I can get 
> my help desk to blow away that older distribution. Or maybe it is the 
> latest distribution since my help desk person first upgraded MikTex 
> and then updated it, but the filenames are all dated 2019 two years 
> ago when I failed to successfully configure TeXnicCenter.
>
> Why am I writing this email?
>
> I have been blissfully unaware of how frustrating it can be for a 
> nonexpert to install a free TeX distribution with present resources 
> available. How can TeX expect to survive with such obstacles? What is 
> it that I am missing?
>
> Every year I get a TUG DVD, but my laptop does not have a DVD/CD 
> reader of course…I am guessing that is more for group administrators 
> or computer savvy people?
>
> Why isn’t there a self-installing complete setup for Windows LaTeX? 
> Does TeX Live also suffer from these installation procedures which 
> require user input, input that is not clearly specified anywhere?
>
> I don’t expect resolution of my local problems, but I would like 
> assurance that ordinary people can install easily a working LaTeX 
> system. I would love to try it myself. I would even pay a reasonable fee.
>
> Thanks for all your years of dedicated work, whoever reads this.
>
> bob
>
> A picture containing text, linedrawing Description automatically generated
>
> bob jantzen
>
> http://www34.homepage.villanova.edu/robert.jantzen/ 
> <http://www34.homepage.villanova.edu/robert.jantzen/>
>
> http://www.drbobenterprises.com <http://www.drbobenterprises.com/>
>
-- 
Dr Alan Litchfield
AlphaByte
PO Box 1941
Auckland, New Zealand 1140

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