MacTeX-2012 ReadMe

This installer provides all the software needed to use the TeX typesetting system on Mac OS X. All of
the software is fully configured and ready to use. Included are

the actual TeX program, and the XeTeX extended version with Unicode and native font support;

macro packages, such as LaTeX, AMSTeX, and ConTeXt

TeXShop and TeXworks, graphical user interfaces for TeX

Ghostscript, a free postscript interpreter used by certain TeX utilities

BibDesk, an editor for BibTeX databases

LaTeXiT, a utility to typeset LaTeX equations and export the resulting PDF by drag and drop

TeX Live Utility, a utility to administer TeX Live and update packages in it over the network

"convert", a utility from ImageMagick to convert between graphic formats

Latin Modern and the TeX Gyre fonts, allowing the use of standard TeX fonts in other OS X apps

Excalibur, a spell checker for TeX source code

The underlying TeXLive distribution is extensive, containing most binaries, fonts, styles, and packages
used in the TeX community. It is a repackaging of the full TeX Live distribution from the TeX Users
Group (TUG), and installs that distribution exactly as it would appear if installed from the TeX Live
DVD.
A custom install option is provided for users who want only part of the package. DO NOT USE THE
CUSTOM OPTION TO CHANGE THE INSTALL LOCATION, SINCE SOFTWARE WILL NOT WORK
CORRECTLY IF MOVED! The package contains Ghostscript and the "convert" utility from Image
Magick; users who already have Ghostscript and the full Image Magick may want to use custom install
to avoid the versions provided here. The Latin Modern and TeX Gyre fonts are part of TeX Live and
automatically available in TeX; by using custom install you can also install them in the system font
folder and make them available to all Macintosh applications.
Among the programs installed by the package is TeXShop, a graphical interface to the TeX typesetting
tools. TeXShop will be in your Applications folder in a subfolder named TeX and you can drag its icon
to the dock if you wish. The folder also contains TeXworks, an alternate graphical interface to TeX. Its
interface was modeled on TeXShop; TeXworks runs on other platforms as well: Windows, Linux, etc.
The TeX folder contains a README file explaining technical details of TeX Live for experienced users,
and explaining how to start using and learning TeX for beginners.
Some programs in TeX need to know whether you are using letter-size paper or A4-size paper. The
installer tries to guess the answer from your printer's default paper setting. This will work in almost all
cases. If you run into problems, run TeX Live Utility in /Applications/TeX and select "Change Paper
Size..." in the Actions menu.
The installer adds BibDesk, Excalibur, LaTeXiT to the TeX folder in your Applications folder. It adds the
program i-Installer to the Utilities folder inside this Applications folder. All are standard Mac programs
which can be uninstalled by just dragging them to the trash.
The TeX typesetting system consists of several command line programs and a large number of
supporting files. These tools are installed in /usr/local, a directory not visible in the Finder. Inside the
system Library folder you will find a subfolder named TeX; the Root file inside this folder is a link to
the TeX directory tree which makes it visible to the Finder. So you can examine the files if you are
curious. It is usually not necessary to look at the command line files because they are automatically
accessed by TeX and TeXShop as needed.
If you have used TeX on another system, you may have needed to modify $TEXINPUTS, $PATH, and
other shell variables; these are handled automatically on Mac OS X. Occasionally you will want to add
additional style files and the like to TeX; to do so, create the directory "texmf" inside your personal
Library folder in your home directory, and put additional files in subdirectories of this folder. For

instance, LaTeX will find any file in

~/Library/texmf/tex/latex
or a subdirectory of this folder.
For more information about TeX, see http://tug.org, in particular http://tug.org/begin.html for links
to a number of introductory resources. For more information about this MacTeX distribution, see
http://tug.org/mactex.