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The MacTeX installer puts all TeX command-line programs, style files, macros, fonts, etc. into /usr/local/texlive/, creating this directory if necessary.
It puts
Ghostscript,
ImageMagick
and the PNG Library into appropriate subfolders of /usr/local/.
The MacTeX installer has a Custom Install option, allowing the user to choose which packages are installed. In Easy Install mode, all are installed. The available packages are TeXLive-2007, GUI_Applications, Ghostscript, ImageMagick, and Font Utilities.
(a) TeXLive-2007
MacTeX installs the full version of TeX Live 2007 from the TeX User Group (TUG). This is exactly the version distributed by TUG on a DVD; the 2007 DVD will be available in March. TeX Live is a very complete TeX distribution available for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and other Unix systems. Following standard TeX Live practice, the bulk of the distribution is installed in /usr/local/texlive/2007, but a skeleton texmf tree for local additions is provided in /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local. Next year's distribution will then go to /usr/local/texlive/2008/ without disturbing the 2007 distribution so users can experiment before committing to it. Additions made to /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local will not be disturbed by the MacTeX installer, so local additions will continue to apply to distributions in future years.
The TeX Live installed by MacTeX is identical to that obtained by installing using TeX Live's own install script, with the following exceptions:
- MacTeX installs binaries for both powerpc and intel, since Macs use both processors.
- MacTeX's TeX Live is configured to use $HOME/Library/texmf rather than $HOME/texmf for user additions to the texmf tree. This is the location used by previous versions of TeX on Mac OS X from Gerben Wierda. After adding files to this location, texhash need not be run.
- When the TeX Live install script finishes, it prints a message suggesting that users modify their PATH variable appropriately. MacTeX modifies both PATH and MAN entries automatically. This modification is done using scripts from Gerben Wierda and is consistent with his TeX distributions.
- When the TeX Live install script finishes, it prints a message suggesting that users configure TeX paper size for "letter" or "a4" paper. MacTeX does this step automatically. TeX Live suggests using the command
(or "a4" instead of "letter" where appropriate), while MacTeX issues two commands:
- sudo texconfig-sys paper letter
This makes a subtle difference which will not affect most users. The MacTeX approach tells dvips to insert postscript commands "letter" or "a4" in postscript output. When this output is then converted to pdf form by Ghostscript or Apple's Distiller, the "letter" and "a4" commands are used to produce correct pdf files. Some printers do not understand the "letter" and "a4" commands, which is why TeX Live uses only the first command. Mac users almost never send postscript files directly to a printer, but they often convert postscript to pdf. Gerben Wierda's distributions are configured for paper size using the MacTeX approach.
- sudo texconfig-sys paper letter
- sudo texconfig-sys dvips paper letter
- MacTeX adds an extra data structure designed by Gerben Wierda and Jerome Laurens to /Library/TeX, and adds a "TeX Distribution" preference pane by Jerome Laurens to /Library/PreferencePanes. This data structure is exactly the same as the structure provided by Gerben Wierda's recent gwTeX distribution. It provides support for multiple TeX distributions on the same computer. See information at the bottom of this page for details.
(b) GUI_Applications
The following GUI programs are installed in /Applications/TeX:
- TeXShop (1.43 for Panther, 2.10 for Tiger)
- BibDesk (1.2.1 for Panther, 1.3.1 for Tiger)
- LaTeXiT (1.11.1 for Panther, 1.11.1 for Tiger; these are different programs)
- Excalibur (in subfolder, with dictionary and documentation)
The following is installed in /Applications/Utilities: i-Installer is Gerben Wierda's program to install and maintain a series of i-Packages, including Ghostscript, ImageMagick, and various Font Utilities mentioned below. The program can be used to install and maintain another TeX Distribution called gwTeX. The two distributions gwTeX and TeX Live 2007 coexist without interfering with each other. i-Installer cannot be used to upgrade or configure TeX Live.
(c) Ghostscript
The Ghostscript here comes directly from Gerben Wierda's distribution, and is equivalent to installing the following package with i-Installer:
- Ghostscript 8
Both MacTeX and i-Installer install two versions of gs, one with X11 support and one without, and make gs a link to the appropriate version at the end of installation, depending on whether or not the user has installed Apple's X11 package.
(d) ImageMagick
The ImageMagick here comes directly from Gerben Wierda's distribution, and is equivalent to installing the following packages with i-Installer:
- Freetype 2
- libwmf
- ImageMagick
(e) Font Utilities
The various font utilities here come directly from Gerben Wierda's distribution, and are equivalent to installing the following packages with i-Installer:
- GNU gettext libraries
- FontForge
- Fondu Mac Font cli Tools
In 2006, MacTeX installed Thomas Esser's teTeX distribution using a redistribution packaging by Gerben Wierda. In May of 2006, Esser announced the end of support for teTeX, and recommended that users switch to TeX Live. This caused a flurry of activity throughout the TeX world. The Mac OS X support for multiple distributions is one outcome of this activity.
As mentioned earlier, MacTeX installs a data structure by Gerben Wierda and Jerome Laurens to support multiple TeX distributions on a machine. Users who installed last year's MacTeX or Gerben Wierda's TeX from several months ago will discover that the old TeX has not been altered by MacTeX. Instead a new preference pane is available in Apple's System Preferences; this "TeX Distributions" pane lists available distributions on your machine. After installation of MacTeX-2007, it might list "gwTeX-2003-2005" and "TeXLive-2007", where gwTeX-2003-2005 is the distribution contained in last year's MacTeX. If you have installed Gerben Wierda's most recent distribution, it will also list "gwTeX". The currently active distribution will be selected in the pane. Select another distribution to make it active.
Changing distributions with the pane automatically changes PATH and MAN variables, so interaction with TeX via the command line will use the appropriate distribution. It also automatically reconfigures GUI applications so they use the new active distribution. To make this happen, a new symbolic link named /usr/texbin has been created. Some GUI applications will need to be reconfigured to use this link, but after they are configured, they never need be touched again. For example, LaTeXit has preferences which list the full path to binaries for pdfLaTeX, xeTeX, etc. The current default for the first is
TeX Live will install next year's distribution in /usr/local/texlive/2008. By using the TeX Distributions pane, users can confidentally install this distribution without worrying that it will break projects currently underway. If there are problems with the 2008 version, these users can return to the 2007 version with a single preference pane click. When experiments show that the new distribution causes no problem, users can make it permanently active.
Incidentally, the data structure does not modify the actual TeX distribution in any way. It is ingeniously constructed so that, for instance, the preference pane needs to only change a single symbolic link to change the active TeX distribution.
TeX distributions are installed in locations which are usually not displayed in the Finder. But it is possible to inspect the currently active distribution by going to /Library/TeX/Root with Finder. This is a symbolic link to the full currently active distribution. Similarly, /Library/TeX/Documentation is a symbolic link to all documentation folders for the currently active distribution.
The data structure contains features which future GUI programs may use. For example, a TeX interface program could offer to typeset some files with one distribution and others with another, or to display a list of documentation for the currently active distribution.
The data structure currently does not support the Fink or MacPorts TeX distributions, but it would be trivial to add such support. Maintainers of these distributions should contact the MacTeX team or Gerben Wierda and Jerome Laurens if interested.
Updates to the full MacTeX install packages will be available on an irregular basis on this page; these updates will be clearly marked with a new release date.
In between releases of the TeXLive DVD from TUG, updates to Ghostscript, ImageMagick, and the Font Utilities may be made using Gerben Wierda's i-Installer tool.
Updates to the other programs (b) may be done via their local websites.