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Please, read the question before marking it as duplicate.

Since June 2015, xindy is finally included in the MiKTeX distribution for Windows. Unfortunately, this does not mean that you can use xindy out of the box. At least on my system, I still get the error message:

xindy: The Perl interpreter could not be found

So, hopefully, the only missing thing is a Perl interpreter to run xindy. I searched the MiKTeX documentation and also the Web, but I did not found an answer to my question, which Perl interpreter to install for Windows. There are three different interpreters to choose from at https://www.perl.org/get.html

Could somebody, please, give a new answer to that question instead of just linking to How to use Xindy with MiKTeX? which is usally done. This link does not answer my question.

To nail done my prerequisites:

  • I don't care about doing anything (else) with Perl. I just want xindy to work.

  • I would prefer a Perl distribution which is easy to install (if there is a difference between the distributions).

If installing Perl distribution XY is not enough to get xindy work, it would be nice to know.

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    For general preference I'd go with Strawberry, but will have to test it works OK with xindy/MiKTeX.
    – Joseph Wright ♦
    Jul 20, 2015 at 6:56
  • There are at least two easy-to-install Perl distributions for Win32, I am aware of. You could use the Cygwin environment, which provides many GNU/Linux tools for native use. The other choice is ActivePerl.
    – Henri Menke
    Jul 20, 2015 at 7:01
  • @HenriMenke I would like to avoid Cygwin, if possible.
    – Thomas F. Sturm
    Jul 20, 2015 at 7:11
  • Strawberry is a good choice as Joseph mentioned also and very easy to install.
    – Yiannis Lazarides
    Jul 20, 2015 at 7:40
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    @JosephWright I followed the majority of the commentators and installed Strawberry just now. Installation was easy (as promised) with a small tripping hazard - the path name should not contain a space in it. The installer reveals that AFTER installation. Lucky me, I did not use one. Now, xindy talks to me :-) Would you like to convert your comment into an answer?
    – Thomas F. Sturm
    Jul 20, 2015 at 9:41

1 Answer 1

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Probably the most straight-forward to use Perl system on Windows is Strawberry Perl. It sticks closely to the way Perl works across other platforms, so whilst it is not 'adapted' for Windows that's probably a good thing. The only point to notice is that you should not install with a path with spaces in it: I'd go with C:\strawberry.

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  • Thank you for your answer. For the installation path, I used c:\ProgrammeNoAdmin\Strawberry which also worked. I put all stuff that is critical with spaces or admin rights into c:\ProgrammeNoAdmin to keep my root directory clean.
    – Thomas F. Sturm
    Jul 20, 2015 at 9:57

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