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I've just installed Tex Live on Windows. However, when I tried the pdflatex command, the command failed as an nonexistent command. In an attempt to fix this, I did a filename search for "pdflatex" and added the directory C:\texlive\2017\bin\win32 to the PATH variable. Subsequently, the pdflatex command worked, but I then got the below output:

This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.18 (TeX Live 2017/W32TeX) (preloaded
 format=pdflatex)
 restricted \write18 enabled.

kpathsea: Running mktexfmt pdflatex.fmt

The command name is C:\texlive\2017\bin\win32\mktexfmt
Running the command C:\texlive\2017\bin\win32\fmtutil-user.exe
I can't find the format file `pdflatex.fmt'!

The directory 2017 is also somewhat troubling because I just installed the latest version of Tex Live, which I understand to have been released this year, so there might be a file conflict with a previous Tex Live install attempt (I would have attempted a clean reinstall, but I'm unsure how to uninstall Tex Live completely). I've looked at some other questions (1, 2, 3), but the first 2 don't appear to apply to Windows, and regarding the third question I would prefer not to install the TeX Live Package Manager unless it proves to be necessary.

So my question is: how do I fix the error so I can convert my .tex to a .pdf?

Graham
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  • certainly that is texlive 2017, which is now frozen and will not receive any updates as texlive 2018 published, hard to say what is wring though. Do you have a \texlive\2018 directory? what did you install? – David Carlisle May 18 '18 at 18:30
  • @DavidCarlisle I though I'd installed 2018, but I don't have a \texlive\2018 directory. I installed using an installer from the tug website. – Graham May 18 '18 at 18:38
  • have you installed a previous version of TXL? – naphaneal May 18 '18 at 18:40
  • @DavidCarlisle I just downloaded it today, but I had to use a proxy to connect the website because I couldn't connect using my local network for some reason. – Graham May 18 '18 at 18:40
  • for over month the version available at https://www.tug.org/texlive/ has been texlive 2018, when did you download it? – David Carlisle May 18 '18 at 18:41
  • @DavidCarlisle If I re-downloaded it and re-installed, would it have problems with the pre-existing installation? – Graham May 18 '18 at 18:43
  • texlive 2017 isn't available from that page, only under the "historic" distribution links – David Carlisle May 18 '18 at 18:44
  • @Graham no texlive 2018 installs in /2018 not /2017 so all you have to do is set the path to the new one and the old one is unaffected, you can delete it or keep it in case you need to switch back – David Carlisle May 18 '18 at 18:45

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