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I am new to LaTex writing a research paper. I am using MikTex and VSCode

I am using \usepackage[backend=biber, style=apa]{biblatex}. This correctly generates references & bibliography on my windows computer, but when I work on my MacOS M1 laptop, it does not.

I have already updated all packages to the latest version. I have also tried adding the code below in settings.json of VSCode.

{
    "name": "biber",
    "command": "biber",
    "args": [
        "%DOCFILE%"
    ]
}

However, running PDFLatex-->biber-->PDFLatex x2 does not work either.

Is there anyway that my installation of MikTex/VSCode/Biber is incorrect for MacOS?

Solarrixs
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    Welcome to TeX.SE! – Mensch Nov 17 '22 at 17:48
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    I wouldn't use miktex on a mac. Most mac user will use texlive or mactex (the later uses texlive internally) -- this is much better tested. – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Nov 17 '22 at 17:50
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    Does it work if you compile from the command line? – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Nov 17 '22 at 17:52
  • @samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz I work with a Mac laptop and a Windows desktop. So I sync the same files between the 2 computers, so I thought I was forced to use MikTex for both. Can I run MacTex on my Mac, and MiKtex on my PC, and still have the files sync together?

    Does not work if compiled from command line.

     – Solarrixs Nov 18 '22 at 01:39
  • There were some initial hiccups with Biber on M1, but as far as I understand the binary should work now (see e.g. https://github.com/plk/biber/issues/433). I'm assuming, however, that the vast majority of Mac users use MacTeX or TeX live, so it is entirely possible that there has been no feedback from MikTeX users yet. Maybe MikTeX does not have the newest binaries from CTAN? What exactly happens when you try to run biber --version or biber <yourfile> form the command line? Do you get error messages? – moewe Nov 18 '22 at 06:41
  • In principle it should be possible to compile the same file with different TeX distributions on different systems. For the most part an up-to-date MikTeX and TeX live should behave reasonably similar. (I'm writing this at a time where there is/recently was an issue with the babel and firstaid in MikTeX due to a missed update: https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/665487/35864.) Just don't sync the temporary files (.aux, .bbl, .bcf, ...) with your files (those can depend on package versions much more than the source): Just take the .tex, .bib and image sources. ... – moewe Nov 18 '22 at 06:46
  • ... As long as your document does not mess with internal macros a lot and use documented high-level interfaces, the chances that you should be OK are fairly high (but unfortunately, not exactly 1). – moewe Nov 18 '22 at 06:47
  • @moewe Alright - will switch into MacTex tomorrow. biber --version outputs 2.18; biber outputs: This is Biber 2.18... Found 37 citekeys... found BibTex data source research.bib, Found 37 citekeys in bib section 0. But building the .tex file results in errors: There were undefined references; Package rerunfilecheck Warning: File `researchpaper.out' has changed; Package biblatex Warning: Please (re)run Biber on the file – Solarrixs Nov 18 '22 at 07:10
  • Could be a corrupted Biber cache (this seems to happen sometimes on a Mac, presumably an overeager clean-up job ...). Try to delete the cache and rerun Biber. See https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/543837/35864 for more details. – moewe Nov 18 '22 at 07:21
  • @Solarrixs As long as both installations are up-to-date, there shouldn't be any problems with using different distributions. However if you want to have the same tex distribution across different platforms: texlive also works on windows. From experience, texlive is much quicker to update and distribute new packages and there are much less packaging errors. – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Nov 18 '22 at 09:36

0 Answers0