Basic setup for LaTeX for Mac?

Question

I have a professor who requires me to use Latex but he mainly speaks in terms of PC. I have a Mac so I have to find appropriate alternatives. So far I have purchased "Latexian" as an editor, and see that the MikTeX distribution is mainly for PC. It seems that the alternative for Mac is Mactex.

Am I correct? Is there any other concern I should consider? Out of curiosity, why wouldn't Latexian have a built in installer, since it can obviously generate live PDF views anyway?

MacTeX is indeed the main distribution for Mac. It's the Mac version of TeX Live,, which is multi-platform. — Bernard, Aug 21 '14 at 13:59
You could take a look at Glossary of TeX and LaTeX terms to familiarize yourself with some key concepts related to LaTeX: compilation, distribution, engine, etc. — mvkorpel, Aug 21 '14 at 14:03
There are lots of editors for LaTeX: see http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/339/latex-editors-ides. As you've paid for one, I guess you'll go with that, but there are lots of free alternatives (many cross-platform with Windows/Linux). — Joseph Wright, Aug 21 '14 at 15:50

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 05 '14 at 20:34

As others have remarked, the nearest equivalent to MikTeX on Mac OS X is MacTeX. Alternately, you could install BasicTeX for a smaller and less capable download. The Latexian FAQ addresses this in a minor note, which seems odd given the importance of TeX for a LaTeX IDE.

As to why Latexian doesn't include a built-in installer for TeX, I'd guess that the sheer size is the main reason. Latexian is under 10 MB, while BasicTeX is ~100 MB, and MacTeX is ~2.4 GB.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 21 '14 at 19:24

I slightly prefer TeXMaker to Latexian (have been working with both), but depends on how complicated your document gets. (Texmaker is free; it doesn't have a live preview, but I think it's more flexible as far as compilation goes.) I never had any problems with using LaTeX on a Mac. (You have to install a texmf folder into your library, where you keep the style files if any.)

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 21 '14 at 19:30

I use Latexian + MacTex and it works great. I you are just starting out, it's the right combination. Once you get a bit more used to LaTeX, you can try something like Sublime Text + the Latexing plugin. It's more powerful but harder to use.

You can get MacTex here: https://tug.org/mactex/. Just download it and double click on the setup file. Follow the steps and that is it. This is required by Latexing otherwise you can't generate the PDF's

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 21 '14 at 19:59

I am new as well. Mactex is the distribution and what I have used to get all the tex stuff.

For an editor I use Texpad. It is a paid for editor but it si great IMHO, super easy to use, has live preview and a good outline pane. I sure free ones do the same too.

Also think about some sort of versioning system like Github or Subversion. I use Github

Hope it helps

Basic setup for LaTeX for Mac?

4 Answers4