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My Apple friends says that they cannot compile LaTeX. I don't have a Mac at hand to test what the problem is.

  1. How can I get something like pdflatex to get LaTeX compiled on a Mac such as a MacBook or iMac?

  2. What about iPad? How can I compile LaTeX on an iPad?

I suggested my friends to compile things on their servers and use Sshfs, more here, but they have problems getting MacPorts. I am now trying to find some local way of doing things.

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Some instructions here but not sure of the best solution, a lot of alternative solutions apparently. – hhh Sep 19 '12 at 20:32
Look at MacTex (tug.org/mactex/downloading.html). I doubt you'll be able to compile LaTeX on your iPad, but it's relatively straightforward on the mac. – jakev Sep 19 '12 at 20:39
As an example. my setup is to edit in emacs. So, to enable LaTeX work, I download and install MacTex. Then, I install Homebrew. Then, on the command line, I execute "brew install emacs" and then "brew install auctex". If everything installs correctly, you should be able to go to your source file in emacs, hit C-c C-c and it should compile. – jakev Sep 19 '12 at 20:44
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I see. In that case, you could login to the server on your iPad and if you can get emacs open, and it works on the server, than it would also work from the iPad. Yes, homebrew is like macports, but it seems to have more and better support. – jakev Sep 19 '12 at 20:48
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and yes, I believe you do need xcode's command line tools. Sorry, forgot about that. – jakev Sep 19 '12 at 20:48
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1 Answer

up vote 5 down vote accepted

Have them download http://www.tug.org/mactex/. It contains all they need to edit (via TeXShop) and typeset (via a complete LaTeX distribution) LaTeX documents.

For the iPad, have a look at http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/tex-touch/id377627321?mt=8 and http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tex-equation/id390366359?mt=8.

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