[OS X TeX] getting MacOSX-Tex

[Herbert Schulz]

On Jun 14, 2012, at 4:35 PM, Frederick Mayer wrote:

> OK but something happened...I downloaded the MacTex-2011, unzipped it and went through the installation. It said it was Successful. But then I couldn't find MacTex anywhere. Any suggestions?
>  -Fred M
> 


Howdy,

The TeX Live 2011 distribution is stored in /usr/local/texlive/2011/... . But, in general, there is no reason to do anything within the distribution. If you have personal files, packages, bib files, etc., you create a parallel personal tree in ~/Library/texmf (you have to create that texmf and sub-folders. Please see the FAQ at <http://www.tug.org/mactex> and looks specifically at QM.04.

There is a symbolic link, /usr/texbin, that is placed along your default path so you can execute latex or pdflatex, etc., in Terminal. Most of the GUI applications already have /usr/texbin as the path to the TeX binaries. 

You can have multiple TeX distributions on your system. You use the System Preferences->TeX Distribution preference pane to change between them. E.g., you can also install MacTeX-2012 once it comes out and then switch between them using that preference pane.

Run the TeX Live Utility application (found in /Applications/TeX along with other GUI applications like the TeXShop front end) to update your distribution to it's final state. Note: TeX Live 2011 has been frozen for a while now while work has proceeded on TeX Live 2012. Once TeX Live 2012, and then MacTeX-2012, is released TeX Live Utility will then update TeX Live 2012. (Well, it will take a short while for things to start showing up in the pipeline.)

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)