- #MAC OS FOR BEGINNERS PDF INSTALL#
- #MAC OS FOR BEGINNERS PDF UPDATE#
- #MAC OS FOR BEGINNERS PDF CODE#
Tip: I have uploaded the tutorial document so you can download and play around with it. Once you've installed everything, then it's time to create your first TeX document! For beginners, I would recommend a dedicated TeX editor as it makes learning to write in TeX a lot easier!
#MAC OS FOR BEGINNERS PDF CODE#
You can also write TeX in commercial code editors such as Sublime Text with the relevant syntax, but you will need to open any documents up in a TeX editor so that they can be rendered. There are also other options out there, such as TeXstudio and the commercial Texpad offering, which I reviewed last year on Mac AppStorm.
With MacTeX, you get a couple of free solutions ( TeXworks, which I will use for this tutorial, and TeXShop). However, I would recommend a specific TeX editor as you often get a handy list of tools with them (such as auto-complete and error reporting, which flags up any errors in your TeX coding before the document is rendered). Just like HTML, you can write TeX is virtually any text editor or word processing package. If you've installed all the available updates in the TeX Live Utility, then you should be presented with this screen.
#MAC OS FOR BEGINNERS PDF UPDATE#
Once you've installed it (it'll pop up in a dedicated TeX folder in your applications) then run the TeX Live Utility, which will update your TeX distribution to the latest version.
You can download MacTeX directly here (direct download link – the file is approximately 2.1 GB in size) or via the Torrent network. There are quite a few TeX distributions out there that work with OS X, but my personal recommendation would be MacTeX, which is specifically written for the Mac and supports pretty much all OS X versions (including Mountain Lion).
#MAC OS FOR BEGINNERS PDF INSTALL#
In order to be able to write TeX documents on your Mac, you'll first need to download and install a distribution, which renders your documents. If anyone has had to write a long formula in, say, the Equation Editor of Microsoft Word, then they will know how fiddly it is.īefore we get started with our first TeX document, there are a couple of things you need to install on your Mac first. TeX is used heavily in the academic and scientific world, mostly due to the standardized layout and look of documents (though this can be changed), as well as the fact that TeX renders mathematical formulas extremely well (one of its fortes). His aim with TeX was to create a system so that documents would look the same across all computers and that the look of the documents wouldn't diminish with time. Basically, it is a typesetting language that was designed and developed (mostly) by Donald Knuth, a professor at Stanford University, back in the 1970s. I think it would be prudent to first give you a brief introduction of TeX and why it's so popular within certain circles. This may sound a bit scary, but TeX is a lot simpler to learn than other programming languages and once you've used it for a while you'll soon pick it up really easy.
With TeX, you have to learn the various commands before you can start creating documents.
It's not as simple as just opening up a word processor such as Pages or Microsoft Word and tapping away. What scares people away from TeX is its learning curve. This tutorial will show you the basics of TeX – how it works and how you can create a nice, simple document with very little effort. TeX is a wonderful and very versatile typesetting system that can be used to write almost anything – from reports to letters and even more complicated documents such as books and posters.