[OS X TeX] Revised MacTeX and BasicTeX

[Richard Koch]

Folks,

MacTeX-2016 was released on June 3, 2016. Apple announced Sierra on June 13, 2016, and this operating system was released to the public on September 20, 2016. 

There is one minor problem with MacTeX when installed on Sierra. MacTeX installs a file named TeX in /etc/paths.d. This file contains the text
"/Library/TeX/texbin", and the file causes macOS to add this entry to $PATH for command line operations. Man pages are similarly handled by an entry in /etc/manpaths.d. Other programs like XQuartz and Mathematica also add entries to these two folders.

If Sierra is installed on a new disk, rather than installed by updating an earlier system, then the folders /etc/paths.d and /etc/manpaths.d are not created. If the user later installs TeX, they may not be able to typeset from the command line.

To fix this, go to

	http://pages.uoregon.edu/koch

and download and install the very small revised FixLink program. 

I have just uploaded revised versions of MacTeX-2016 and BasicTeX-2016 to the CTAN site, and they will flow to CTAN servers over the next few days. The only changes in the new versions are:

	1) Both create the folders /etc/paths.d and /etc/manpaths.d when they do not already exist

	2) The Welcome dialog for both is dated September, 2016 rather than June, 2016

	3) The MacTeX package puts the revised version of FixLink in /Applications/TeX

Note that these packages install the June versions of GUI programs and the June distribution of TeX Live; updating these portions would lead to confusion, causing some users get one thing and others to get another in MacTeX-2016. Of course GUI programs can be updated using "Check for Updates" and TeX Live can be updated using TeX Live Utility.

The changes cannot be made to the DVD, so users who install from the DVD and find that they cannot typeset from the command line should find FixLink on my web site and install it.

Dick Koch
koch at uoregon.edu