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No this is not about WIX. Sort of.

I built a C# application that generates its output in Latex.

Then the user can press a button to convert the latex into a PDF with pdflatex.exe.

This way I can get a very neat output.

Now, I distribute my app via an MS WIX installation. So I must find out which files to include in the WIX setup.

That means I need to find out which MikTex package files are necessary.

OK, I could tell my customer to install the entire MikTex, but maybe that's a bit much to ask. And there would be a host of unneeded files.

My questions:

  1. If including packages in the WIX setup, where are they on Win 10?
  2. Can I just dump those files in the WIX setup, or is some kind of installation of the packages necessary?
  3. Or can I just include pdflatex.exe compiler and have it download the necessary packages when the client presses "compile"?

I would appreciate suggestions about this issue.

Erik
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    you can use pdflatex --recoder so that you get a log (.fls) of all files input by that document. but I can not say what is a minimum .exe and .dll set you need to get miktex working especially if you want the package install feature. texlive is likely to be easier to subset precisely because it doesn't install packages on the fly. You might also consider luatex or xetex rather than pdftex and use windows system fonts then you would not have to distribute tex fonts – David Carlisle Feb 03 '21 at 15:32
  • Note that the flag is --recorder (with an r). – Marijn Feb 03 '21 at 15:33
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    See also https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/352138/minimal-latex-installation-40-mb-for-thesis (cross-platform, 76MB) and https://yihui.name/tinytex/ (94MB). – Marijn Feb 03 '21 at 15:43
  • @Marijn oops thanks for correcting my typo – David Carlisle Feb 03 '21 at 17:38

1 Answers1

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you can use

pdflatex --recorder

so that you get a log (.fls) of all files input by that document. but I can not say what is a minimum .exe and .dll set you need to get miktex working especially if you want the package install feature. texlive is likely to be easier to subset precisely because it doesn't install packages on the fly. You might also consider luatex or xetex rather than pdftex and use windows system fonts then you would not have to distribute tex fonts

David Carlisle
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