** The Most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) **

TWG  |  MacTeX  |  Donate  |  FAQ  |  Fonts  |  Help  |  References  |  Support  |  Acknowledgments  |  TUG

Q0: I am having trouble opening the .zip file or completing the installation process. How can I get MacTeX installed?

A0: If you are running OS X 10.3, see question Q8 below.

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-2008 on the DVD and loan you the DVD.

A final solution, if all else fails, is to go to http://www.tug.org/mactex/2008/morepackages.html and download BasicTeX-2008; 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.

Q0.1: 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.

A0.1: Luckily, this problem has nothing to do with MacTeX or the various front ends, and is easily fixed. When GUI programs want to display pdf files, they call Apple's internal pdf routines. In turn, these routines call Apple's font routines to construct bitmaps for the outline fonts. These Apple routines store the bitmaps in a font cache to speed up future display. For unknown reasons, the font cache can become corrupt. When that happens, the fonts will display incorrectly in all applications which use Apple's display routines. An exception is Adobe's Acrobat Reader because it uses Adobe's own code to display pdf files. Quitting applications and restarting them will not solve the problem. Logging out and back in will not solve it. But completely rebooting the computer will force the font cache to be rebuilt and should solve the problem. This problem tends to occur on new machines when TeX is first installed, although it can crop up at other times. It can recur, but almost all users never see it again or run into it once every six months or so.

For a small number of users, rebooting does not solve the problem. In that case you can obtain the correct version of Onyx for your OS version from http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/download.html and clean the font cache. Then reboot.

Q1: I am running MacTeX on Mac OSX 10.3, but ConTeXt does not seem to work. Why not?

A1: The latest ConTeXt requires an updated version of Ruby, which is in OS X 10.4, but not in OS X 10.3. Since Ruby is part of the Apple system, we are reluctant to modify it in MacTeX. You may be able to find a Ruby upgrade for OS X 10.3 on the web, but the easy solution is to upgrade to OS X 10.4.

Q2: 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 ..."

A2: The latest version of TeXShop fixes this problem automatically, but it only runs on OS X 10.4. An earlier TeXShop, version 1.34, is installed on OS X 10.3. This version must be manually configured for TeX Live. Thus to fix the problem, go to TeXShop Preferences, under the Engine tab, and change the first entry to
    /usr/texbin

Q3: Do I need to uninstall my previous TeX distribution before installing MacTeX?

A3: No. The TeX Live in MacTeX installs in a new location, /usr/local/texlive/2008, and does not overwrite the old distribution. Consult the documentation for your older distribution to uninstall it, if you want to save space.

Q4: Where do I put my personal additions to the texmf tree?

A4: 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.

Q5: Why can't the latest MacTeX find my local BibTeX files? Earlier versions of MacTeX worked correctly.

A5: 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.

Q6: 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."

A6: 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 (2.18) of TeXShop with MacOS X 10.4.x (Tiger) or MacOS X 10.5.x (Leopard).

About altpdftex...

Q7: TeXShop complains of a damaged Macros file when it starts.

A7: 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.

Q8: When I unzip MacTeX.mpkg.zip on system 10.3, the resulting install package doesn't work. What do I do?

A8: Our zip file was created with Apple software on Leopard, but unfortunately the corresponding Apple software on system 10.3 cannot correctly unzip the file. However, system 10.3 has another program which works correctly. Once the file is correctly unzipped, it will install without problems. There are two options:

1. Unzipping with the Terminal application

Move the downloaded file MacTeX.mpkg.zip to your desktop. Then open Terminal in /Applications/Utilities, and issue the following commands. Push the return key after each line:

         cd desktop
        unzip MacTeX.mpkg.zip 

2. Unzipping with "The Unarchiver" application

Make sure you are running system 10.3.9; if not, use Software Update to download and install the free upgrade. Then go to http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html and download The Unarchiver. Put this program in /Applications/Utilities and run it once so the system knows that it is present. Then highlight MacTeX.mpkg.zip in the Finder and select the "Get Info" menu item. In the resulting panel, find the "Open with:" item and select "The Unarchiver". The zip file will now correctly unzip.

For more information about other Frequently asked Questions please

• search the Archives of the Mac OS X TeX mailing list, or
• join the Apfelwiki TeXshop Forum

If you still have problems with the MacTeX Installer, you may contact us via the mactex-support webpage.