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I was working with an old version of Tikz. It appeared I could not use some features, probably because I had an outdated version.

So I tried to reinstall a new version of pgf. I downloaded it and tried as best as possible to get it installed... No result. The instructions are a shame. Even worse: in the process of doing so my old tikz does not even work anymore. It says 'I can't find file pgfutil-common.tex'.

I probably did something wrong.

Can somebody please tell me - in detail and in extremely simple terms - what to do? Even if I now run '\usepackage{Tikz}' it doesn't work.

I have a TexShop. In some map in my library I have a map called 'Tex'. I think I did something wrong by changing things in this map.

Sorry for my incomplete information.

  • I'm working on a Mac operating system.

  • In the map 'TeX' where I believe my tex is installed there is a file called 'TeX Distribution Helper', if I click on it it says 'Choose a system wide TeX distribution'; then I have two options, either gwTeX or TeXLive-2007. So far I've always been using the TeXLive-2007 option I believe - until yesterday, for some reason I changed it to gwTeX. I think I perhaps screwed up by changing this to gwTeX (from that moment I think the Tikz package didn't work anymore).

I've now re-set this to 'TeXLive-2007', and the Tikz works again - that is, if I put \usepackage{tikz} in my tex-file I do not get error messages, and I can use the "basic" commands in TikZ, they work and without errors. However, I still cannot use most of the TikZ libraries and so on (for instance, if I put \usetikzlibrary{shadows}, I get the message 'I can't find the file pgflibrarytikzshadows.code.tex'). Remarkably, \usetikzlibrary{arrows} does work.

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What distribution do you have (TeX Live, MiKTeX, MacTeX)? On what operating system are you running (Windows, Unix, Mac)? – Werner May 9 '12 at 5:31
TexShop is just the front-end/text editor. What we really need is the informations @Werner asked about. Normally you should be able to update packages using a package manager provided by you (La)TeX installation. – Martin Scharrer♦ May 9 '12 at 6:50
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As you are using TexShop, you are probably on a Mac. Maybe the easiest solution for you would be to uninstall what you have, then download a recent version of MacTeX and install it. MacTeX includes TexShop and TexWorks as editors and it also includes the tikz/pgf packages. – matth May 9 '12 at 11:09
Your session seem to have expired and so you automatically got a new unregistered account. This stopped you from editing your question. I now merged your accounts together and moved your new information into the question. Please consider registering your account to avoid this in the future. – Martin Scharrer♦ May 9 '12 at 12:55
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TeXLive-2007? This is way outdated! Try to install a modern MacTeX which is based on TeX Live 2011. This will include a modern version of PGF/TikZ. – Martin Scharrer♦ May 9 '12 at 12:58

1 Answer

up vote 3 down vote

Your TeX distribution is so old that I could not say for sure that the current version of PGF/TikZ would work smoothly with it – even if you get it installed, eventually.

I strongly recommend installing a recent TeX distribution, which will include PGF V2.1 out of the box. For the Mac, MacTeX is broadly seen as the best choice regarding completeness and user experience.

As all recent distributions based on TexLive, it also supports easy upgrading of packages via the TexLive Manager, for which a graphical front end is available as well. So if some day PGF V3.x will be released, it will be more easy to upgrade again.

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