Mac Installation

< Installation hints | TeX Distributions >

Welcome to the Macintosh! Nowadays it's not a big difference how to use TeX on MacOS or any other Unix.

Distributions and Tools

Most probably the best way to use ConTeXt on Mac has been gwTeX via i-Installer so far. However, it's not supported any more since January 2007 (which means that you cannot post bug reports or feature requests to the author any more), but ConTeXt updates are still available and it works as expected.

If you have an older installation, you should replace the teTeX-based variant with TeXLive-based one:

• uninstall both "gwTeX Support: ConTeXt updater" (context-update.ii2) and "DEPRECATED gwTeX based on teTeX" (tex.ii2)
• install "gwTeX based on TeXLive" (texlive.ii2) and "ConTeXt updater" again

The new version now includes the texmfstart script and installs both pdfTeX and XeTeX formats automatically.

Beyond this, there may be other tools that interest you:

• TeXshop, a simple, elegant TeX editor and PDF viewer.
• iTeXMac, a more fully featured, but sometimes more complex, TeX editor and PDF viewer
• TeXniscope is an interesting, auto-updating PDF- and DVI viewer, especially helpful when you're updating documents from the command line or otherwise outside of the above-mentioned integrated editor/viewers.

Installation

• If you have a broad bandwith internet connection, use Gerben Wierda's i-Installer to install the latest TeXlive tree and (afterwards) the latest ConTeXt beta.
• You can also buy a TeXlive DVD.

Links

• Mac-TeX (Penn State University)