# LaTeX

[LaTeX](http://www.latex-project.org/) is a high-quality typesetting
system. It is used by our Python tools to generate various forms of
output such as [postscript](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript) and
pdf files. Most of our Python tools do not use LaTeX so you might want
to hold off on installation until absolutely necessary, particularly
since it is a very hefty download (approximately 2.4GB at the time of
writing this). However, any Python tools that are expected to generate
some kind of nicely formatted output such as a pdf will *most likely*
require LaTeX to be installed. Certain features of the more common tools
such as tmplot.py may not work properly.

## Installing on Macs 

Thankfully the LaTeX installation on Macs is pretty straightforward from
the user\'s perspective. The Mac distribution of LaTeX is called MacTeX
and will contain everything that you will need (it comes with a bunch of
postscript tools).

1.  Download MacTeX from [here](http://www.tug.org/mactex/). As of
    writing this, the download size is approximately 2.4GB, so please
    make sure you have enough time to allow the download to complete.
2.  Open/run the downloaded package and follow all of the installation
    steps. The default install location should be fine. Once completed,
    you should now have a fully installed LaTeX distribution.
3.  If you want to make sure the installation worked properly, open up a
    new terminal window and execute `which latex`. You should see a path
    to the `latex` program. If instead you see `latex not found` then
    something went wrong during the installation and the Python tools
    that require LaTeX or postscript will not work properly. If you
    cannot debug the issue on your own, please contact someone to help.