In this short video I show the installation process of LaTeX (using the MaKTeX implementation). TeXShop is a TeX previewer for Mac OS X, written in Cocoa. Since pdf is a native file format on OS X, TeXShop uses 'pdftex' and 'pdflatex' rather than 'tex' and 'latex' to typeset; these programs. Latex for Mac OS X closed Ask Question Asked 9 years, 4 months ago. Active 9 years, 4 months ago. Viewed 1k times 2. This question is off-topic. It is not currently accepting answers. Want to improve this question? Update the question so it's on-topic for Stack Overflow.
May 23, 2019 As other best open source LaTex editors mentioned above, it also gets its interface from Qt toolkit. alert-announce Download LaTex TeXstudio /alert-announce Kile. License Type: OpenSource. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (Source code need to be compiled for Linux and MacOS). TeXShop (v 4.44) requires Mac OS X 10.10 or later TeXShop (v 2.47) requires Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later RSS feed.
<< | Page list | >>This is a HOWTO for LyX/Mac, a full-featured native implementation of LyX on the Mac OS X.
Table of contents
- Useful Helper Programs
- 4.1 Previewers
- 4.2 Spellcheckers
- 4.3 Bibtex tools
- 4.4 Envelopes
- 4.5 OmniGraffle converter
- 4.6 On screen quality of included PDF files
- Beyond basics
- 5.1 PdfSync and SyncTeX -- Forward Search and Reverse Search
- 5.2 Version Control
- 5.3 Interaction with X11.
- 5.4 DVI viewers
- Pipes
- 6.1 Name in Path Problem (JabRef)
Download
LyX/Mac is available as a binary for Mac OS X 10.4 and later. (Note additional prerequisites below.) The download page is here.
For users who prefer emacs-like modifier key bindings, there is additional information on customizing these keys, including patched binary versions.
Gatekeeper
'LyX' can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.
With Mac OS X Mountain Lion a new feature is active: the Gatekeeper. It's there to help protect your Mac from malware and misbehaving apps downloaded from the Internet. An app that is delivered by an unknown developer — one with no Developer ID — will be blocked. To get a developer ID one has to buy a license from Apple with yearly costs. Because there is no support for open source programs like LyX by Apple the application is not signed. (In case you are GPG user we provide gpg signatures, see Download Checksums & signing section).
Fortunately there is an easy way to start LyX without disabling Gatekeeper:
1. Don't open the application with a double click. Click it while pressing the Control-key instead.
2. Choose Open
3. Another window is opened. There you choose open again. That's it.
More information is available here (the Apple documentation).
Prerequisite
You need a TeX installation. The easiest option is to use MacTeX. The .dmg file for a complete MacTeX installation is very large (> 1 GB), but it is a very complete distribution and installs right out of the box. MacTeX includes all the components necessary for TeX to work, and includes the bibliography managing program BibDesk.
Users with slower download speeds might want to download BasicTeX, a much smaller distribution, linked from the MacTeX page.
Useful Helper Programs
Previewers
LyX/Mac uses the system default viewers, and should require no configuration for PDF and HTML.
To specify a non-default GUI viewer use
open -a app-name
or open -a 'Application Name'
in Preferences -> Outputs -> File formats -> filetype -> Viewer.Spellcheckers
As of LyX/Mac 2.0, spellchecking support is included by default.
Bibtex tools
- BibDesk is a highly recommended tool for maintaining BibTeX databases. Other possibilities include JabRef, tkbibtex (used with Tcl/Tk Aqua) or its aquafied counterpart, AquaTkbibtex, respectively, and Endnote (used with scripts that convert Endnote citations to LaTeX citations).
Envelopes
To print envelopes, install envelope in /usr/local/bin and make it executable. While you're writing a letter in LyX, do File -> Export -> Custom -> ASCII and give
envelope
as the command; it will parse the address from the letter and print an envelope, including the USPS barcode.OmniGraffle converter
OmniGraffle is a great software for creating diagrams under Mac OS X (in particular, it works very well with LaTeXiT so that you can easily insert math formulae into diagrams). As it doesn't have a command line mode, you can use an AppleScript in order to insert '.graffle' files directly into LyX.
- Put og-export.scpt somewhere on your disk (e.g. in
$HOME/Library/Scripts/
). - In order to use it, go to LyX preferences, add an OmniGraffle file format (just type
auto
for the editor), and then add converters:OmniGraffle -> PDF (ps2pdf)
converter:osascript replace/with/path/to/og-export.scpt `pwd`/$$i `pwd`/$$o pdf
OmniGraffle -> EPS
converter:osascript replace/with/path/to/og-export.scpt `pwd`/$$i `pwd`/$$o eps
OmniGraffle -> PNG
converter:osascript replace/with/path/to/og-export.scpt $$i $$o png
- Note that currently, LyX doesn't work with OmniGraffle packages (e.g. diagrams including images). This problem will hopefully be solved in the future (see this bug for details).
On screen quality of included PDF files
When you include a PDF graphic in a LyX file, it will appear crisp in the typeset PDF file of your document, but the version you see in the LyX window can be quite ugly. Lyx converts PDFs to PNG to show them in this window, and the default conversion method can choose quite a low definition for these bitmaps. A quicker and better solution would be to include a converter that uses the
sips
program that comes with OSX (it is a command line tool that you can use in the Terminal for converting a graphic file between different formats). To create this converter, you should open the Preference menu item in the LyX menu, and go to the File handling tab, then the Converters item. Here we will use the PDF (graphics) ->EPS
item as a template. When you choose this item, the bottom boxes are filled and you can read a command that starts with pdftops...
in the converter box. We will first change the EPS
item on the right to PNG
(you should have this possibility in the combo that opens when you click on EPS), and change the converter command as consequence, by replacing the complete psdtopdf...
command by:sips --resampleWidth 600 --setProperty format png $$i --out $$o
You can also increase the
resampleWidth
value if the generated bitmaps look too small on your screen (please first check that Lyx shows them at 100% of their size). When you finish setting these parameter, click Add
button next to the top converters list (if not, you will loose the new converter), then click Save
. If you open a new file containing PDF graphics, they should be much better looking and crispier now. If you want to change these values later, you should come to the same screen, select this converter, change the parameters in the converter box, and click Modify
before leaving this screen.Beyond basics
PdfSync and SyncTeX -- Forward Search and Reverse Search
LyX allows, using a suitable viewer such as Skim.app, to navigate quickly between a particular place in a LyX document to the corresponding place in the rendered PDF document (forward search) and from a particular place in the PDF back to the corresponding place in the LyX document (reverse or inverse search). However, some set-up is needed before this functionality is available.
- Please note that there are more up-to-date instructions using SyncTeX on this wiki at http://wiki.lyx.org/LyX/SyncTeX where the free OS X PDF viewer Skim.app is used. (Skim is highly recommended for this use.)
- Please note also that there are new instructions about reverse search in Additional Features Manual.
PdfSync is similar to reverse DVI search but is for the (now more common) method of directly producing pdf files. If you use the program Skim as your previewer you can COMAND-SHIFT-click in the previewed pdf file which causes the cursor to move to that point in LyX.
- In LyX > Preferences > File Handling > File formats > PDF (pdflatex), in the Viewer setting select 'Custom' and then enter
open -a Skim.app $$i
in the viewer setting. Then click Save. - In Skim > Preferences > Sync select LyX.
- Include
usepackage{pdfsync}
in the preamble of your LyX files.- Troubleshooting PdfSync
- Make sure that the .lyxpipe.in and .lyxpipe.out files do not exist when LyX is not running. (They are normally deleted when LyX quits, but if LyX crashes, they remain and prevent LyX from communicating with PDFView.) Their location can be found in LyX > Preferences > Paths.
Version Control
- Please note that there are new instructions about version control in Additional Features Manual.
Version control is useful for managing large documents, or documents with multiple authors. In order to implement it, you need to have RCS (Revision Control System) installed. This is a standard part of Xcode. The simplest way to get version control working, is to install the Xcode Tools package contained on the OS X install DVD. See the Mac Version Control page for more information.
Interaction with X11.
Xfig or X-windows previewers like xdvi or gv can be used with LyX/Mac if you modify your
~/MacOSX/environment.plist
file. For details, see the environment.plist page. Alternatively, you can change the viewer for postscript or dvi with DISPLAY=:0.0 gv
or DISPLAY=:0.0 xdvi
. Note that X11 must be running first for either of these to work.DVI viewers
By default, LyX will generate PDF files. If for some reason you prefer to create and view DVI files, some set-up hints are provided on the Mac-DVI page.
Pipes
Name in Path Problem (JabRef)
Programs such as JabRef communicate with LyX via pipes, which are sometimes named incorrectly by default (e.g., they assume that the pipe is in a directory that has a space in its name, such as
Application Support
, but other programs often cannot deal with spaces in paths). You may need to fix the lyxpipe path in both LyX and JabRef in Mac OS X.To fix the LyX pipe in JabRef, open JabRef and go to
Preferences>External Programs
and in 'Path to LyX pipe' enter /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/Resources/lyxpipe
. Close JabRef.Then open LyX, go to
LyX>Preferences>Paths
, and in 'LyXServer pipe' enter /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/Resources/lyxpipe
. Reconfigure. Close LyX.The next time you run LyX and JabRef, you should be able to push citations directly from your BibTeX bibliography in JabRef into LyX. If anything goes wrong, JabRef will return an error message, and you will have to redefine the pipe. You might try the following: (1) change the LyXServer path in LyX -> Preferences -> Paths back to
~/.lyx
; (2) recreate the ~/.lyx
directory by entering in a terminal session, 'mkdir ~/.lyx
'; and (3) restart LyX.Known issues
- Due to limitations in the Qt/Mac library, interface languages other than English modify the organization of the toolbar menus and it may not be possible to directly enter some special characters into the document preamble (you can copy them to the preamble).
Please report any other bugs to the appropriate LyX mailing list. A web gateway is also available.
The information on this page is believed to be accurate, has been used successfully on many systems and sites, and has benefited from the comments and suggestions of many users. Due to the variations in individual systems, this information and the various files and code available on this page are conveyed as is with no warranty of any kind.
More information
This group contains the following pages:
- Mac /
Categories
LaTeX is free software under the terms of the LaTeX Project Public License (LPPL). LaTeX is distributed through CTAN servers or comes as part of many easily installable and usable TeX distributions provided by the TeX User Group (TUG) or third parties. If you run into trouble, visit the help section.
LaTeX is not a stand-alone typesetting program in itself, but document preparation software that runs on top of Donald E. Knuth's TeX typesetting system. TeX distributions usually bundle together all the parts needed for a working TeX system and they generally add to this both configuration and maintenance utilities. Nowadays LaTeX, and many of the packages built on it, form an important component of any major TeX distribution.
- The LaTeX Git Repository
The LaTeX team cannot guarantee that TeX distributions, even recent ones, contain the most recent version of LaTeX. It may happen that you need a more recent LaTeX than the one that your favourite TeX distribution carries, e.g., in order to get a particular bug fix. In that case you will need to fetch LaTeX from CTAN and install it on top of your distribution. See below for details.
TeX Distributions
If you’re new to TeX and LaTeX or just want an easy installation, geta full TeX distribution. The TeX Users Group (TUG) has a list of notable distributionsthat are entirely, or least primarily, free software.
Linux
Check your Linux distributions software source for a TeX distribution including LaTeX. You can also install the current TeX Live distribution directly---in fact this may be advisable as many Linux distributions only contain older versions of TeX Live, see Linux TeX Live package status for details.
Mac OS
The MacTeX distribution contains everything you need, including a complete TeX system with LaTeX itself and editors to write documents.
Windows
Check out the MiKTeX or proTeXt or TeX Live distributions; they contain a complete TeX system with LaTeX itself and editors to write documents.
Online
LaTeX online services like Papeeria, Overleaf, ShareLaTeX, Datazar, and LaTeX base offer the ability to edit, view and download LaTeX files and resulting PDFs.
CTAN
You can obtain LaTeX from CTAN, which is theprimary source of distribution for LaTeX. In order for your downloadedLaTeX to be of any use, you have to obtain and set up a TeX systemfirst. You can either install a TeX distribution (see above) or get aTeX system from CTAN. Ifyou use a TeX distribution then it will include a version of LaTeX sothis will probably make things easier for you; but you may have areason not to do this.
The LaTeX Git Repository
These days the LaTeX development sources are kept in a GitHubrepository (previously we used SVN).
Anyone can access it and download the files, butsubmission is restricted to team members. The repository is located at https://github.com/latex3/latex2eand from that browser page you may explore the files, clone therepository or download the files in a
.zip
archive (roughly 25Mb) byusing the appropriate buttons.If you are familiar with Git you can also clone the repository using thecommand line or your favorite Git fontend tool, e.g.,
which needs about 50Mb of space.Alternatively, you can do a Subversion checkout from the command line, e.g.,
which will just checkout the current files.But be aware that a SVN checkout of the form
will download all files including theirhistory (back to 2009) and amounts to roughly 1.4Gb so that is quite large.
Note: If you had bookmarked the old SVN repository please update thatbookmark to the new GIT repository as we have finally removed it.
A note on Git pull requests
Git repositories support distributed development and allow people toprovide change sets that are made available through so called pullrequests, so that the maintainers of a program can “pull the suggestedchanges” into the main repository.
While we appreciate contributions, we think that for the core LaTeXsoftware pull requests are usually not a good approach (unless thechange has be already discussed and agreed upon).The stability of LaTeX is very important and this means that changes tothe kernel are necessarily very conservative. It also means that a lotof discussion has to happen before any changes are made. So if you dodecide to post a pull request, please bear this in mind: we doappreciate ideas, but cannot always integrate them into the kernel andit is quite likely that we reject updates made in this way.
If you want to discuss a possible contribution before (or instead of)making a pull request, we suggest you raise the topic first onthe LATEX-L list or drop aline to the team.
Historic LaTeX
Texshop For Mac
Ulrik Vieth has collected historic versions of LaTeX from LaTeX 2.0for TeX 1.0 (released on 11 December 1983) onwards. You can find thematftp://ftp.tug.org/historic/macros/latex-saildart/.There might even be some earlier versions. All files have been pulledfrom the SAILDART archive site at http://z.baumgart.org/ (no longeronline) which was based on archive tapes from SAIL at Stanford.
Latex For Mac Os X 10.6
More historic material can be found at ftp://ftp.tug.org/historic (you may not be able to open this in all browsers — alternatively try https://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/historic/).