New Features in MacTeX-2024 and TeX Live 2024
MacTeX-2024
Since 2021, MacTeX has supported both Arm and Intel processors. Arm binaries are compiled on a machine with an Arm processor and Intel binaries are compiled on a machine with an Intel processor. Then these binaries are combined into a single "universal binary" file.
The program TeX Live Utility by Adam Maxwell makes heavy use of the scripting language Python. Python has been included in macOS for many years, but recently Python 2 was replaced by Python 3 and it became harder to predict which version would be in macOS. So Apple told developers that Python would eventually be removed from macOS and if they use it, they should embed a copy directly in their applications. TeX Live Utility now contains its own copy of Python. Apple indeed removed Python from the third update of Monterey, but TeX Live Utility continued to work.
The GUI-Applications portion of MacTeX-2024 installs hintView, a small application by Martin Ruckert which allows users to get a feel for his Hint project. TeX Live 2024 contains Ruckert's programs hitex and hilatex, which convert TeX source files into hnt files rather than pdf files. These hnt files contains "hints" for reflowing the text, so suitable viewers on iPads, iPhones, and similar devices could display documents for reading on these devices, and allow users to magnify and reflow the text.
TeX Live 2024
The following list of TeX Live changes is taken directly from a TUG pretest web page. The TUG page has relative links into the documentation which we removed. Read below for a brief overview. For details, go to https://tug.org.
Notable changes
As always, there are pervasive updates to packages and programs.
We can't list them all, but here are the major user-visible changes in
the principal programs relative to initial TL23 release:
- luatex
- Lua-level checks for writing to files now similar to the TeX-level checks.
- metapost
- The MPFI library now included for interval
arithmetic; enabled with --numbersystem=interval.
- pdftex
- More reliable text extraction on BigEndian systems.
- More checks against corrupt pfb, fmt, pdf files.
- Avoid writing a corrupt pdf given unusual pdf inclusions.
- (e)(u)ptex
- New simple encoding conversion utility ptekf.
- eptex no longer built separately; it runs in euptex's
legacy-encoding mode.
- xetex
- Only Kpathsea and other cross-engine updates.
- cweb
- Support LuaTeX as backend TeX engine.
- Fix buffer overflow on lines with no breakpoint.
- dvipdfmx
- Calculate time zone offset in the same way as pdfTeX.
- Handle variation selectors to cope with the new Adobe-Japan1-UCS2 CMap.
- Fallback multibyte characters in virtual fonts to OFM fonts for (u)pTeX.
- kpathsea
- Support an extended check for safe filenames which also allows
writing under TEXMF[SYS]VAR, for Lua(La)TeX; new functions and corresponding
kpsewhich options.
- Support a new variable TEXMF_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY (alongside
the traditional TEXMFOUTPUT), so that subprograms can have access to an
--output-directory setting in an engine invocation.
- tlmgr
- Use our own root certificate bundle on all platforms, to support LWP
more widely, notably on macOS.
- Detect a remote repository older than the local installation (i.e.,
a stale mirror), and don't update, to avoid incorrect package removals.
- Support ConTeXt paper size setting.
- Prune backups of tlpdb files for mirrored repositories (main and
tlcontrib).
- MacTeX
- MacTeX-2024 contains the latest Ghostscript 10.03.0, updates
of all four GUI programs,
along with (as always) all new TL changes. The binaries still support
macOS 10.14 (Mojave) and later. (As usual, earlier Mac versions are
supported by the x86_64-darwinlegacy binaries, which are part
of TL, but not MacTeX.)
If you discover other changes that should be noted, please report them.
Such documentation improvements are useful to many people.
