LaTeX

LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system. It is used by our Python tools to generate various forms of output such as 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. 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.