Checking MacTeX version installed on a Mac

Question

I can use latex -v to check the version of LaTeX. Is there a way to check what version of MacTeX (MacTeX 2008, 2009 or 2010) is installed?

score 17 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 25 '12 at 02:45

17

MacTeX installs a System Preferences pane which shows TeX installations for selection. There you can see the version.

Here's a screenshot:

enter image description here

edited Oct 25 '12 at 02:45

Peter Grill

223,288

answered Dec 17 '10 at 17:01

Stefan Kottwitz

231,401

Oh. I thought he wanted something that he could check programmatically. – Harald Hanche-Olsen Dec 17 '10 at 17:34
This is the right (i.e., Mac-like) answer. I totally forgot about the preference pane. – Matthew Leingang Dec 17 '10 at 17:55
6

If I am correct, this is no longer the case with TexLive 2016 on Mac OS X 10.9.5. – Karlo Aug 03 '17 at 22:38
1

This is no longer the case, indeed. Look for the TeX Live Utility app instead. – postylem May 02 '22 at 18:56

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered May 13 '19 at 23:18

The latest info as of May 2019.

Tex Live Utility allows you to check the MacTex version you are currently using (and to switch to other version if needed). There is no longer a System Preferences pane for this purpose.

The MacTex website says:

Long ago we installed a Preference Pane which could do this switching, but this functionality is now in TeX Live Utility, which is in /Applications/TeX. To switch, use the Configure menu item "Select Default TeX Live Version."

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 11 '20 at 15:43

5

Found this answer on superuser which essentially says:

Run pdflatex --version
The first row contains the version pdfTeX 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.21 (TeX Live 2020) (2020 in my case)

answered Jun 11 '20 at 15:43

belteshazzar

171

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 17 '10 at 16:36

5

; readlink /usr/texbin
../usr/local/texlive/2010/bin/x86_64-darwin

answered Dec 17 '10 at 16:36

Harald Hanche-Olsen

15,968

2

Weird. On my mac that gives ../Library/TeX/Distributions/.DefaultTeX/Contents/Programs/i386 But readlink /usr/textbin/ (note the trailing slash) gives ../../../../../../../usr/local/texlive/2010/bin/x86_64-darwin – Matthew Leingang Dec 17 '10 at 16:43
Yeah, /Library/TeX/Distributions/ contains a whole mess of links. I have no idea why my /usr/texbin is a direct link rather than indirecting though said mess. – Harald Hanche-Olsen Dec 17 '10 at 17:41
Your programmatical approach is fine. I like the command line. – Stefan Kottwitz Dec 17 '10 at 17:45

lhf · Answer 5 · 2020-08-31T13:01:50.267

4

In 2010, this worked:

cd /usr/texbin && pwd -P

and gave something like /usr/local/texlive/2009/bin/universal-darwin.

For more recent versions, use

cd /Library/TeX/Root && pwd -P

which gives something like /usr/local/texlive/2018.

edited Aug 31 '20 at 13:01

answered Dec 17 '10 at 17:07

lhf

2,212

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 17 '10 at 16:48

2

Create a "hello world" latex file and compile it. Look at the console or .log file and see what files are being loaded. On my machine I see

(/usr/local/texlive/2010/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/article.cls...

So you can guess it's TL 2010.

answered Dec 17 '10 at 16:48

Matthew Leingang

44,937
14
131
195

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 22 '24 at 13:47

0

You could also use:

which tex # shows which and where your MacTex is installed

Or:

tex --version # or `tex -v`

answered Jan 22 '24 at 13:47

psygo

438

Checking MacTeX version installed on a Mac

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