Why is the MacTeX distribution so large? Is there anything smaller for OS X?

Question

I would like to know how to install LaTeX on Mac 10.6 or higher.

But the MacTeX is some 1.28 GB file! Is there a smaller distribution I could install?

What exactly is TeX Live?

possible duplicate of I want to start using LaTeX on a MacOS. Where do I start?
Then maybe the question should be edited to something like "why is mactex so big?", also I don't see why "10.6" is relevant to have on the title.
The size is not so unexpected for "everything" (all packages and their documentation); the equivalent on Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install texlive-full says Need to get 1,012MB of archives. After this operation, 1,805MB of additional disk space will be used. Although for any given person many of the packages would be useless, it's really convenient to just install MacTeX and forget about having to hunt for packages in the future.
Ok, this question is getting some pretty good answers, so I've edited it to make the difference from the previous question more clear and explicit.

4 revs, 3 users 97% · Answer 1 · 2012-07-30 19:45:56Z

MacTeX (and by extension TeX Live) are so big because they contain everything up to, and including the kitchen sink, then heaps on yet more stuff. Odds are, out of that 1.3 GB archive you will only use 300-400 MB worth of files on a regular basis. This is similar in size to an application like OpenOffice.

There is an alternative to downloading and installing a 1.3 GB TeX distribution if you are using Mac OS X.

BasicTeX

One thing that hasn't been mentioned here, or in I want to start using LaTeX on a MacOS. Where do I start? is that MacTeX is available in a "Lite" edition called BasicTeX that has been stripped down to ~90 MB.

The trade-off that comes with using BasicTeX is that you will have to download and install additional packages and programs as the need arises- and BasicTeX is so basic that the need will arise. Unfortunately this is a lot more difficult for first time users than it really has to be. MikTeX has been delighting TeX newcomers on Windows for years by automagically installing missing packages as they are needed.

So, after installing BasicTeX you will be faced with the tasks of installing additional programs and installing missing packages.

Installing Additional Programs

The components of TeX Live installed by MacTeX and BasicTeX includes TeX compilers and associated macro-systems such as LaTeX, ConTeXt and their add-on packages and modules. These programs are command line based and focus on turning .tex files into output such as PDF documents- they leave the details of creating .tex and associated files up to the user.

MacTeX includes additional programs such as an editor and a BibTeX reference manager that help users to work with TeX outside of the command line. BasicTeX does not include these GUI programs. There are two ways to add GUI support to BasicTeX.

Install the MacTeX Additions

Go to the page where BasicTeX is available for download and download the mactex-additions package. Installing this package will provide all the GUI programs that are included in MacTeX but excluded from BasicTeX.

Do it Buffet-Style

Since the whole point of installing BasicTeX over MacTeX was to avoid downloading things we never use- you can install the GUI programs yourself by mixing and matching to your liking. Here are some things you may want:

The TeX Live Utility. You will want this- it provides a nice GUI to tlmgr which is the command line program that installs additional packages for TeX Live. This is how you will add missing packages that are required by LaTeX documents.
A nice editor. Choosing an editor is like choosing a religion so you may want to weigh your options. MacTeX includes TeXShop which is a nice Mac-only editor for .tex documents. TeXworks is similar but also works on Linux and Windows.

The universe of TeX-aware editors is covered in detail by this question.
A program for managing BibTeX entries. BibTeX is a wonderful component of TeX Live that makes the creation and formatting of bibliography entries a breeze. Unfortunately, creating BibTeX input files introduces yet another learning curve. This problem is solved by programs that create the files for you given information such as titles, author names, publications, etc. MacTeX includes BibDesk which is an excellent Mac-only program for managing BibTeX entries. Another good choice is JabRef which is cross-platform.

Installing Missing TeX Live Components

Missing Packages

You will know there is a missing package when you attempt to compile your document and compilation stops with an error message that looks like this:

! LaTeX Error: File `multirow.sty' not found.

Type X to quit or to roceed, or enter new name. (Default extension: sty)

Enter file name:

In this case, LaTeX is trying to load a package named multirow but cannot find multirow.sty which is the file that contains the code for the package. To install missing packages, you can try the following things:

*Try to Install Directly Using tlmgr:

This is the "hope-you-get-lucky" approach and it works 90% of the time. Just open the command line and type:

tlmgr install pkgname

Where pkgname is the missing package that LaTeX was complaining about. In the example above, LaTeX complained about multirow.sty- the package name is the part before .sty so the command would be:

tlmgr install multirow

You can also use the TeX Live Utility. Open the application and click on the "Manage Packages" tab. Then:
1. Enter the <pkgname> into the search field.
2. Select the package in the main window.
3. Click install.
When tlmgr Can't Find the Package:

This also applies to the TeX Live Utility as it is just a GUI for tlmgr.

Sometimes, you type in the package name and tlmgr tells you package <pkgname> not present in package repository. or nothing shows up in the TeX Live Utility as a match for your search. In these cases, you may be dealing with a package that is part of a "bundle". A "bundle" is a group of packages that are known to tlmgr by a single name so that they will always be installed together. A good example is the pdflscape package.

Unfortunately, figuring out the name of the bundle a package is part of is more convoluted than it should be. The easiest way I have found is to use the "Search the package descriptions" feature on CTAN to lookup the package name:

In this case searching for pdflscape bring up a few results- choose the one that matches the package name:

Find the pkgname to use with tlmgr:

For a bundled package, the correct name to pass to tlmgr install or put into the TeX live search box is the name that comes after /macros/latex/contrib/ in the "Location on CTAN" field. For the pdflscape package, oberdiek is the name of the bundle that contains it.

Missing Fonts

Coming soon.

You could also use the net installer for TeX Live and only choose the parts you want. The problem with 'the parts you want' is that everyone wants different parts :-)
I'd like to add a suggestion: when you can't find the missing package, check out the collection packages. For instance, I had trouble with a missing pzdr before, and the solution was to install collection-fontsrecommended.

Joseph Wright · Answer 2 · 2010-08-04 05:47:10Z

MacTeX is, as the other answer says, basically TeX Live with a few extras. The extras are things like TeX Shop, a Mac-only TeX editor. The reason TeX Live is so big is that there are a lot of LaTeX packages, and most have documentation in PDF format. It's actually this documentation that takes up a lot of the space. You can install only part of TeX Live, but the standard settings are to install everything. That's because everyone's requirements are different, and it would be very confusing if beginners were told 'load package xxx' and found that it was not installed, but was in TeX Live.

You can install TeX Live directly on a Mac, rather than downloading MacTeX. The later is Mac-like installer, whereas if you use the raw TeX Live installer you need to use the Terminal and acept that it is a Unix application. However, there is a small TeX Live installer that will download the packages you decide to install as the installation runs, and so can keep down the amount of downloading.

L Spice · Answer 3 · 2011-06-15 02:03:14Z

up vote 8 down vote

This is really just a comment on Sharpie's answer, but I don't have the reputation to comment yet. If tlmgr install <pkg> doesn't work, try tlmgr search <pkg> as a way of automating the CTAN search (or tlmgr search --global --all <pkg>, if you really want to go wild). Here's a recent example that cropped up for me when trying to compile a file that contained \usepackage{epic}:

$ tlmgr install epic
...
tlmgr: cannot find epic
$ tlmgr search epic
 eepic - Extensions to epic and the LaTeX drawing tools.

answered Jun 15 '11 at 2:03

L Spice
14315

1

@L Spice: please don't turn a comment into an answer just because you don't have the reputation for commenting yet. Not yet matching the requirement for one feature doesn't give a reason to misuse another feature instead. If you give some answers, you will soon get the commenting feature. – Stefan Kottwitz♦ Jun 15 '11 at 18:32

I'm sorry about that. While it was morally a comment, it seemed to be useful enough as a separate answer to excuse the abuse. (I was very excited when I saw tlmgr search somewhere else—I'd somehow managed to miss it on every pass through the documentation—and was pretty sure that I'd forget about this question by the time that I had enough reputation for a comment.) – L Spice Jun 16 '11 at 2:44

+1 because I like your contribution. It would be great if you return to this topic soon, because Sharpies answer is CW and can be edited by everyone with at least 100 rep, so you can extend it then. – Stefan Kottwitz♦ Jun 17 '11 at 6:43

When I do so (which may be a while, since I'm not a frequent contributor and so am earning reputation only quite slowly), should I delete this answer? – L Spice Jun 19 '11 at 16:24

I think the comment of @L Spice is really helpful and looks perfectly fine to me. It could be easily merged with the other one though. Still, I think it is a useful contribution, and that L Spice deserves some points for helping. – Juan Bermejo Vega Apr 12 at 20:21

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Gnaij · Answer 4 · 2010-08-04 05:05:51Z

up vote 0 down vote

It depends how many macros you install. Basically TeXLive is almost the same with MacTex or much bigger.

answered Aug 4 '10 at 5:05

Gnaij

Dash · Answer 5 · 2010-08-04 16:31:58Z

If the main concern is size, you can start with the essential packages by using the download links here http://www.tug.org/mactex/2009/morepackages.html

I would suggest that you also download "TeX Live Utility.app". It is a great tool for beginners. You can automatically search/download/update packages when you need them later using this graphical tool.

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Why is the MacTeX distribution so large? Is there anything smaller for OS X?

5 Answers

BasicTeX