[Mac OS X TeX] How many TeX's for OSX are there now ?

[Michael Murray]

As I try to unravel my own confusion (thanks Bruno and Gerben)  this 
document is going to get longer.
Here is another go at summarising the state of play on TeX on MacOS-TeX.

-- Michael


----------------------------------------


                  **** Summary of available TeX installs for Mac OS X ****


Editing:  Before we do any TeX we need to edit the input file.  Not 
many of the applications
below have editors built in, in fact only TeXShop, Scientic Assistant 
and the not yet released
Textures.   When I count
something as a complete TeX install which isn't one of these I am 
assuming you have
some other editor.   In theory any editor running on OS X will work.  BBEdit or
BBEdit lite, Pepper, Alpha (AlphaX is coming) or pico, vi, emacs on 
the UNIX side.



teTeX:  Many (not all) of the applications below use an install of 
teTeX on the UNIX side of MacOS X.
A teTeX install gives you UNIX versions of the standard TeX 
applications and also a texmf tree which
contains all the input files, font definitions etc that TeX needs. 
The various TeX applications
for OS X either use (a) none of this (b) use the texmf tree or (c) 
use the texmf tree and the
teTeX version of the TeX applications.

There are basically two ways to get teTeX.

(a) teTeX from Gerben Weirda:  (extract from Gerben's email follows)

         ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/comp/macosx/tex-gs/TeXLive-teTeX.dmg

Links to the latest release of a stable (afaik) TeXLive develop for 
the programs and script and teTeX-beta for the texmf tree

	ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/comp/macosx/tex-gs/teTeX-teTeX.dmg

Links to the latest release of a stable teTeX-beta for the programs 
and script and teTeX-beta for the texmf tree

	ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/comp/macosx/tex-gs/TeX.dmg

Links to either of the above and will be the one that Gerben is using 
for production.


(b) teTeX from Fink.  Not sure why you would do this instead of 
Gerben's teTeX. Particularly
as most (all ?) of the applications below which rely on you having a 
teTeX are assuming it is
Gerben's.   But its there.   If you don't use it and you do you use 
Fink you should install system-tetex
(sudo fink install system-tetex).

       http://fink.sourceforge.net/

Once you have teTeX you can run tex from the command line via the 
Terminal application. What you are lacking is anyway of
previewing your output in dvi, postscript or pdf form.  If you 
convert everything to pdf (or run
pdflatex) you can preview with Acrobat Reader or OS X preview 
(Acrobat is better).   So I guess thats a working
version of TeX for MacOS X.

(1) teTeX + Acrobat reader or OS X Preview.

(2) X-Windows TeX.  You can set up a typical UNIX TeX install by 
getting XWindows

       http://sourceforge.net/projects/xonx/

      and ghostscript, xdvi from Fink

       http://fink.sourceforge.net/

Ghostscript can preview pdf or you can just use Acrobat Reader. If 
you wen this route
it would make sense to install an editor under XWindows.

(3) OzTeX

     http://www.trevorrow.com

Out of the box this doesn't use teTeX but can be adapted to use the 
teTeX texmf tree.


(4) TeXShop

     http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/texshop.html

Use Gerben's teTeX for tex applications and texmf tree. Has its own editor.


(5) iMacTeX

     http://www.u-bourgogne.fr/monge/j.laurens/iTeXMac/iTM-1.0.3.dmg.bin


Use Gerben's teTeX for tex applications and texmf tree.


(6) TeXPalette

     http://homepage.mac.com/johnj1/software/texpalette.html

Use Gerben's teTeX for tex applications and texmf tree.

(7) CMacTeX

     http://www.kiffe.com

You can do a full install of this which doesn't need teTeX. Or you 
can install just the applications
so it uses the texmf tree.  Or you can use the whole of Gerben's 
teTeX by installing


(8)  TeXTools for OS X

      http://www.kiffe.com/textools.html


(9)  Scientific Assistant

      http://www.advanced-science.com/html/scientific.htm

I don't know much about this. Thanks to Bruno for reminding me of it. 
Has its own editor.

(10) Textures for MacOS X is not here yet but is supposed to be 
coming. Has its own editor.

-------------------------

-- 
_________________________________________________________
Assoc/Prof Michael Murray
Department of Pure Mathematics       Fax: 61+ 8 8303 3696
University of Adelaide             Phone: 61+ 8 8303 4174
Australia  5005      Email: mmurray at maths.adelaide.edu.au
Home Page: http://www.maths.adelaide.edu.au/pure/mmurray
PGP public key:
http://www.maths.adelaide.edu.au/pure/mmurray/pgp.txt
_________________________________________________________






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