Just Take Me There

About TeX Live, MacTeX, and BasicTeX

MacTeX is a package which installs TeX Live on the Macintosh. The package is notarized by Apple and uses Apple's standard install technology. It contains native code for both Intel and Arm processors. When installation is complete, the software is fully configured and ready to use. The icon at the top left of our web pages is a link which takes you to this MacTeX home page.

The MacTeX working group inside TUG provides two install packages. One, BasicTeX, is relatively small, about 90 MB, but fully capable of typesetting standard TeX and LaTeX documents. The other, MacTeX, is much larger and includes essentially all software available for typesetting with TeX-like systems, including TeX, LaTeX, XeTeX, LuaTeX, ConTeXt, etc. This complete system supports almost every written language in use today, including languages of Western Europe, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and a multitude of more obscure scripts.

BasicTeX and MacTeX can coexist on the same machine, so users experimenting with TeX may reasonably install BasicTeX to try it out. The full MacTeX is recommended if you are certain that you will use TeX, even if you are a beginner, because any example in a book will automatically work and no time will be wasted adding extra missing components to the distribution.

Four Ways to Install TeX Live on a Macintosh

MacTeX-2024 requires macOS 10.14, Mojave, or higher and runs natively on Intel and Arm processors. To download, click:

The smaller BasicTeX-2024 also requires macOS 10.14, Mojave, or higher and runs natively on Intel and Arm processors. To download, click:

You can also install TeX Live 2024 using the TeX Live Unix Install Script. This method supports macOS 10.6, Snow Leopard, and higher and runs on Intel and Arm processors. To download, click:

To obtain older versions of MacTeX if you are running macOS 10.3 through 10.13:

Features of MacTeX

• A brief description of MacTeX and MacTeXtras: MacTeX and MacTeXtras.

• Our policy on which versions of macOS to support: Policy on Supported Systems.

• A complete description of what is installed: What's in the MacTeX package.

• Changes in the 2024 version of the software: New Features in MacTeX-2024 and TeX Live 2024.

• The MacTeXtras curated list of documentation and links to additional TeX and LaTeX software: MacTeXtras.

• We are often asked about installing additional fonts in TeX Live. Important changes introduced in 2012 and modified in more recent years affect configuring TeX for these new fonts. These changes are described in a document by Herbert Schulz which also includes information on Restricted Shell Escape. See: Adding-Fonts-and-Restricted-Shell-Escape.

• TeX Live automatically converts eps illustrations to pdf illustrations for appropriate typesetting engines. See: Eps-Tiff-Conversion.pdf.

• The spell checker cocoAspell does not mark TeX commands as misspelled. It is not installed by MacTeX. To get it, see: cocoAspell project.

• Information about the TeX Live Utility program installed by MacTeX: TeX Live Utility.

• Our support for multiple TeX distributions: Multiple TeX Distributions.

• Suggestions on keeping TeX up to date: Update Schedule.

• An explanation on how to uninstall MacTeX: Uninstalling.

Solving Problems

• For problems running ConTeXt: ConTeXt Initialization.

• For problems downloading the software: Downloading Issues.

• Other common problems: Mac-specific Complications.

• More general help: Getting Help.

• Answers to frequently asked questions: Frequently Asked Questions.

• Help with fonts: About Shell Escape and Installing Fonts.

Learning about TeX and LaTeX

• To get started with TeX, read: Just what is TeX?

• TeX can produce documents of great beauty and complexity. Many examples are provided in the TeX Live web pages, accessed by clicking the icon at the top right of each of our pages. Early in the development of MacTeX, samples were produced specifically for our site, and while these samples are now quite old, it is fun to glance at them: Trying Out TeX.