How can I install latexindent on macOS?

Question

I'm using the basicTeX distribution, rather than the MacTeX distribution. I prefer it this way, but there is one problem. I does not come with the tool latexindent which MacTeX does.

I can't figure out how to install this tool manually. There is no proper description on the CTAN page or on it's Github page. Any help? I want to install it in the PATH.

No, but I do have tlmgr, which Tex Live Utility is just a GUI for. But latexindent is not available from there as far as I can see. — eivindml, Sep 08 '17 at 14:14
Strange… As a last resort, you might try downloading latexindent.tar.lzma from a MiKTeX repository and unzip it in your texmf-local? — Bernard, Sep 08 '17 at 14:19
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/5085/how-to-install-a-latex-package-in-macos-texlive?rq=1 — cmhughes, Sep 11 '17 at 17:41

score 13 · Answer 1 · edited May 01 '22 at 06:51

13

OK, things are a little bit different now:

brew install --cask basictex
sudo tlmgr install latexindent
cpan -i YAML::Tiny File::HomeDir Unicode::GCString

and if you want to have the LaTeX Workshop extension on Visual Studio Code working, add the line

"latex-workshop.latexindent.path": "/Library/TeX/texbin/latexindent"

in the settings.json, you need to also install

sudo tlmgr install latexmk

tested on macOS Catalina 10.15.4.

edited May 01 '22 at 06:51

cmhughes

100,947

answered Apr 13 '20 at 19:51

Foad

893

1

Log4perl no longer required :) – cmhughes Sep 23 '21 at 18:45
How can I install tlmgr? – alper Jan 13 '22 at 15:03

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 16 '17 at 12:18

11

I found a solution. Latexindent was not present using tlmgr at first, but after updating repository and trying again, I was able to install it.

For anyone else, this is what I did (root required):

sudo tlmgr option repository ctan
sudo tlmgr update --self
sudo tlmgr install latexindent

So probably outdated or a wrong repo URL at first.

ctan is just an alias for http://mirror.ctan.org/systems/texlive/tlnet

edited Nov 16 '17 at 12:18

Luca Cappelletti

105

answered Sep 08 '17 at 14:28

eivindml

534

1

glad you found a solution! :) you can also download the .zip file from https://github.com/cmhughes/latexindent.pl and then use one of the helper scripts to help with path variables, detailed in the documentation – cmhughes Sep 11 '17 at 17:34
2

This works in Windows PowerShell as well if you remove sudo and instead run PowerShell as Administrator – Jan Hohenheim Apr 05 '18 at 00:12

Andy Clifton · Answer 3 · 2018-11-25T17:05:03.590

For anyone trying to install Latexindent.pl on a clean Mojave installation (macOS 10.14.1, November 2018) so that it works with Atom and other IDEs, there are some more steps required.

First, because some of the perl helper modules require compilation, you'll need a working installation of C and perl:

Make sure that you have Xcode installed and working, including command line tools.

sudo xcode-select --switch /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
Make the header files for c etc. available; see the comment from @Maxx here (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52509602/cant-compile-c-program-on-a-mac-after-upgrade-to-mojave):

I quote:

If we are using XCode 10, you will notice that if you navigate to /usr in the Finder, you will not see a folder called 'include' anymore which is why the terminal complains of the absence of the header files which is contained inside the 'include' folder. In this release statement, developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode_release_notes/… (you navigate to /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Packages/macOS_SDK_headers_for_macOS_10.14.pkg and run that package to have the 'include' folder installed). Then you should be good to go.

Install cpan through the terminal to help with perl installations:

cpan App::cpanminus

The next step is to get Latexindent working as a standalone tool:

Install it using tlmgr as described elsewhere on this page
Download the entire Latexindent zip from https://github.com/cmhughes/latexindent.pl.
Open a terminal window
In the terminal navigate to the "helper-scripts" directory
Run sudo perl latexindent-module-installer.pl to get all of the other required perl modules installed.

You can now test latexindent.pl by opening a new terminal and navigating to the directory where your .tex file is (let`s call it test.tex). Once there, you can test it without changing your file:

latexindent.pl test.tex

From this point on there are many more useful examples in the documentation on readthedocs or the CTAN Package PDF.

This means that latexindent.pl now works with atom-beautify.

... I do wonder if this train wreck was caused by a failed latexindent install when I didn't have X-code installed — Andy Clifton, Nov 25 '18 at 13:25
I just spent the past three hours getting latexindent working and installing the required modules from the command line installed them, but latexindent still complained it couldn't find one of them (Log::Log4perl). The only way I got everything working was to follow the instructions here https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/445536 and installing the modules form inside cpan. I've no idea why this was necessary. — LaTeXereXeTaL, Jul 18 '20 at 01:06
Log4perl no longer required, I sincerely hope this eases installation — cmhughes, Sep 23 '21 at 18:46

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered May 12 '22 at 07:40

4

Nowadays(2022), just using brew:

brew install latexindent

How can I install latexindent on macOS?

5 Answers5