Problem with the 2022 MacTeX installer?

[Richard Koch]

Alan,

The MacTeX package is created as follows. I install TeX Live using the Unix install script on a machine which has been wiped clean of TeX. That script would find no fonts in /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local because that directory is empty when I install, I select letter size paper. And of course I make formats. This will be important later.

Then I copy the distribution to the install package. The install package installs an exact duplicate on your machine. 

After that, a postinstall script is run. The only way extra fonts on your machine could be detected is if the postinstall script detects them. So I looked at this year's postinstall script, and at postinstall scripts from past years. 

In 2019, there was no line to recompile formats or reconfigure fonts. However, earlier in the script I determined the user's paper size and reset it to a4 if necessary. This step would recompile formats. Consequently, installation sometimes recompiled formats, and sometimes didn't. But it never looked for additional fonts.

In more recent years including 2022, the script compiles formats for all systems. The last line of the script reads

	 /usr/local/texlive/2022/bin/universal-darwin/fmtutil-sys --all

But it does not reconfigure fonts.

Herbert Schulz knows much more about fonts than I do. As I understand it, some users put extra fonts in /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local and some put them in ~/Library/texmf, and different scripts must be run for these situations. But maybe I misunderstand.

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So I'm fairly certain that MacTeX's behavior did not change, and you would have had to do something extra to recognize extra fonts. TeX Live Utility has such procedures and that is probably what fixed things for you in the past.

As far as I'm concerned, MacTeX-2022 is done. If an additional script should be run in the future, I'd be happy to add it, provided the experts can verify that it will work for everybody, rather than making life more convenient for many at the expense of breaking things for a few.

Dick Koch