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Formatting Information — An introduction to typesetting with LATEX
There are several options you can change during installation but the most common one is the default A4 paper size. To change this to Letter paper size (eg in North America) you can install TEX Live with the -{}-paper=letter on the command line or by checking the box in the graphical installer. In MiKTEX you can change the paper size in the Preferred paper option during installation.
Mac users can choose between installing TUG’s TEX Live or the MiKTEX implementation.
Download the MacTeX.pkg file by following the link on the TUG MacTEX page at https://tug.org/mactex/.
Move the file to the Desktop or other convenient location, and double-click to install.
When it’s all finished, open your Applications folder in the Finder and go to the TEX subfolder and drag TEXshop out onto your Dock. This is an editor for your LATEX documents, but you can download and install other editors if you prefer (eg TEXPad, TEXMaker, TEXStudio, etc).
Download the Disk Image (DMG) file from the MiKTEX web site at https://miktex.org/download#mac.
Double-click the file to open the disk image, then drag the MiKTEX icon onto the Applications folder.
Note that these are alternative implementations. DO NOT try to install both TEX Live and MiKTEX.
Windows users can choose between installing TUG’s TEX Live or the MiKTEX implementation.
Download the install-tl-windows.exe from the link on TUG’s TEX Live Windows page at https://tug.org/texlive/windows.html.
Double-click the file to run the installer, and follow the prompts on the screen.
Download the installation program from the link on the MiKTEX web site at https://miktex.org/download#win.
Double-click the file to run the installer, and follow the prompts on the screen.
Note that these are alternative implementations. DO NOT try to install both TEX Live and MiKTEX.
Unix and GNU/Linux users can choose between installing TUG’s TEX Live from the TUG web site, a prepackaged implementation from the operating system’s repositories, or MiKTEX.
GNU/Linux systems provide a graphical interface usually called something like Software or Software Center or Software Manager for installing packages from the system’s repositories.
An alternative, preferred by many, is to use the terminal or console to type the system’s package-management command (eg dnf or yum for Red Hat and derivatives or apt-get or apt for Debian and derivatives).
The packages to install are:
TEX Live itself: either texlive-full (Ubuntu etc) or texlive-scheme-full (Red Hat etc)
the utilities ghostscript, gv, and latexmk;
bibliography manager jabref and processor biber;
a PDF viewer of your choice, eg okular, or evince, or qpdfview;
an editor of your choice, eg kile, texstudio, texworks, texmaker, or emacs.
In effect, you type:
sudo apt install texlive-full ghostscript gv latexmk \
jabref biber okular texworks(or dnf instead of apt, depending on your system) and your choice of editor[s] and PDF viewer[s] from those mentioned in item 4 in the list to item 5 in the list above.
Read and follow the instructions at https://tug.org/texlive/quickinstall.html.
+: Installing from the TUG implementation means TEX can be updated independently of the operating system, providing the latest features if required, even multiple versions of TEX Live.
−: You need to be familiar with using the command line and some of the standard utilities, and you need to know how to modify your $PATH to tell your system where TEX has been installed.
Either use the system’s package manager or the command line (see the sidebar ‘Linux repository packages’ above).
+: Installing from system-provided packages provides tighter integration between TEX, editors, and utilities, and no need to go fiddling with your system PATH.
−: Versions are usually tied to the version of the operating system, so updates will depend on how and when the operating system is upgraded.
Read and follow the instructions at https://miktex.org/download#unx.
Make sure you follow the instructions for your flavour of Linux: Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Fedora, Rocky, or openSUSE.
Note that these are alternative implementations. DO NOT try to install both TEX Live (either method) and MiKTEX. If you have already installed one of these systems, you MUST remove it completely before installing a different one, in order to avoid conflicts and unresolved dependencies.