[OS X TeX] XeLaTeX and fontspec issue

[Murray Eisenberg]

Your input worked fine for me, both using xelatex from the Mac Terminal command line and using the xelatex engine from within TeXShop. 

Do you have the xelatex engine active in TeXShop? (If so, then from the engine selection button at the top of the TeXShop source window, just next to the Typeset button, you should see xelatex as one of the choices. If not, open ~/Library/TeXshop/Engines/Inactive and from there copy the xelatex engine and then paste it into ~/Library/TeXshop/Engines and restart TeXShop before proceeding).

But as long as you're using an OpenType-aware engine, you might as well use LuaLaTeX instead of XeLaTeX. That's what the TeXperts recommend these days, given that development of XeLaTeX has ceased.

> On Dec 3, 2025, at 4:54 PM, Jeffrey W Roland <jroland at lsu.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi all, 
> 
> I’m preparing a final book MS and it turns out the publisher only uses four fonts in the series where the book will appear. Of course, none of them are standard LaTeX fonts.  The MS is currently set up for pdfLaTeX and I’m trying to move to XeLaTeX so that I can use Times New Roman as the main font. The problem is that what seems like it should be easy (according to all I’ve read) isn’t working at all for me. Here’s a MWE:
> 
> % !TEX TS-program = XeLaTeX
> 
> \documentclass{memoir}
> \usepackage{fontspec}
> \setmainfont{Times New Roman}
> 
> \begin{document}
>    Hey hey, my my.
> \end{document}
> 
> When I try to typeset this, I get an undefined control sequence error on '\setmainfont{Times New Roman}’.  Two carriage returns produces an output, but not the right one. (’Times New Roman’ is printed as a line of text.)
> 
> I’m using TeXShop 5.57 on a 2025 M4 MB Air running Sequoia 15.7.2 and the current version of MacTeX (installed today, in case that was the problem).
> 
> I must be making a silly mistake, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is. Thoughts?  
> 
> TIA, 
> 
> Jeff
>  
> -- 
> Jeffrey Roland, PhD
> Associate Professor
>  
> Department of Philosophy
> 102 Coates Hall
> Louisiana State University
> Baton Rouge LA  70803
>  
> (e) jroland[at]lsu.edu
> (p) 225.578.2220
> (f) 225.578.4897
>  
>  
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---
Murray Eisenberg		murrayeisenberg at gmail.com
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