Mac-TeX OS X Applications in a Nutshell

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The following table illustrates the plethora of tools now available on MacOS X for working with TeX+ documents. TeX+ means TeX plus variants/macros such as LaTeX, ConTeX, etc. This table specifically does not list many utilities without a significant TeX-related feature. e.g. although Abode Acrobat/Reader is often used to view PDF files generated from PDF(La)TeX, since it doesn't connect itself in any significant way to other TeX applications, it is currently defined as an external utility. Many utilities useful to TeXers are like this, especially in the area of graphics. Unfortunately, the line has to be drawn somewhere... I'll move it over time (as I have time)!

For some explanations of terminology, please see the bottom of this document (scroll WAY down!). By the way, if you're looking for Windows stuff, it's here!

The content of this page is FROZEN. Please see theNew MacTeX pages

Package
Description
Current Version
Last Time I Updated
License
AcroTeX
Education Bundle (free) and Presentation Bundle ($29)
The AcroTeX Education Bundle contains support packages for designing the screen size of your PDF, for creating graphics overlays, for writing interactive exercises and quizzes (with or without solutions), and for inserting Acrobat form elements and embedding JavaScript into the document.
The AcroTeX Presentation Bundle is a collection of LaTeX packages and graphics files used to create eye-popping presentations. There are possibly two uses for this package:
-
1/30/06
free/$29
AlphaX
Editor, supports multiple programming languages, built on (included) TCL scripting language. Interface can be user modified by editing TCL scripts. Leopard users should download the Tiger version.
(Version 8 release 2) 8.0.2
2/26/08
Share: $30
AlphaTK
Editor, platform independent. Supports multiple programming languages, written in TCL scripting language. Interface can be user modified by editing TCL scripts. 8.3fc7
5/14/04
Share: $40
AquaTkbibtex
AquaTkbibtex is an application launcher, written in AppleScript, for tkbibtex. tkbibtex is a portable editor and browser for BibTeX files (LaTeX bibliographies), written in Tcl/Tk. 1.3
6/21/06
Free (GNU)
AutoTeX
Automatically processes a file each time it is modified (i.e. LaTeX automatically on save, BibTeX+LaTeX, etc). 2.10
4/28/07
Free
BBEdit
Editor, supports multiple programming languages. Requires BBEdit plug-ins or TeX-Scripts-BBEdit below in practice.
7.0.2
411/26/04
Pay: $119
BBEdit extension, ChkTeX
Tools to call ChkTeX from BBEdit.
1.2/1.6.4
2/28/08
GPL
BBEdit extensions for iTeXMac
Tools to call iTeXMac from BBEdit.
1.0
5/14/04
Free
BBEdit extensions for teTeX
Tools to call teTeX from BBEdit.
1.9
5/14/04
Free
BBEdit plug-ins
Enhances BBEdit/BBEdit Lite/TextWrangler interaction with TeX engines and viewers.
1.6
1/17/03 Free/Donation
BibDesk
Full featured bibliographic databasedesigned to help organize and use bibliographic databases in BibTeX .bib format. BibDesk also keeps track of electronic copies of literature on your computer plus other features. Works as a Service with Cocoa applications. See bibutils.
1.3.18
7/30/08
Free
BibUtils
The bibutils program set interconverts between various bibliography formats using a common XML intermediate. For example, you can use it as an import filter to Bibdesk:
1) Choose File->Open Using Filter
2) Enter "/usr/local/bin/isi2xml | /usr/local/bin/xml2bib" in the "Filter Shell Command" field of the open panel (no quotes)(Note: Bibdesk now supports ISI format directly.). This can be any Unix command to preprocess the input, but it needs to send BibTeX to standard output as the result.
3) Select the ISI file and open it.
3.27 (intel binary)/3.34 (ppc binary and source)
7/10/7
Free
Bookends
Bibliographic database. Exports and imports from BibTeX format, amongst others.
7.7.4
5/14/04
Pay: $99
ChkTeX
LaTeX semantic checker
1.2/1.6.4
2/21/08
GPL
CMacTeX
Front End, Engine, Viewer, Ghostscript. Relatively complete distribution. Download, expand, it's installed. Doesn't get easier. Requires Editor
4.3
5/14/04
Share: $35
CocoAspell
Spelling utility, Service to Cocoa applications. Unix aspell wrapped by Cocoa interface. (LaTeX parsing, of course).
2.0.4
7/31/08
Free
Combine PDFs
Drop some PDF or picture files on the application or the main window. Reorder or remove pages as you want. Enter some meta information like the Title and save the new PDF. Analysing and processing of PDFs may take a while...
1.0
2/2/05
Free
ConvTeX
Converts from LaTeX or LyX format documents to OpenOffice.
beta
7/17/07
Free
DrawAt
PDFLaTeX replacement for PSfrag (currently works only on MacOS X). (for an alternative that is platform independent, see pdfrack) or WARMFigToPDF below. Note: The RESULTS are platform independent. 1.0
9/28/04
GPL
Emacs: Platform independent.
Unix editor ported to MacOS. See Enhanced Carbon Emacs and Fink below. Supports very wide range of programming languages. Enhanced adds menus for use with LaTeX and includes many packages that are optional installs for Emacs (I still don't know why auc-tex is not included standard in Emacs). Note that command-line emacs is installed by default on your Mac, and Emacs in X-Windows can be installed via Fink or DarwinPorts. Also see WizzyTeX below. TeX packages for Emacs via Google. Also see the Emacs Wiki, Easymacs and Yet Another LaTeX mode for Emacs. Help on installing AucTeX, Preview LaTeX, and RefTeX LaTeX by Peter Dyballa. (platform independent)
-
12/08/04
Free
Emacs: Enhanced Carbon Emacs
Unix editor ported to Carbon interface. Supports very wide range of programming languages. Enhanced adds menus for use with LaTeX and includes many packages that are optional installs for emacs (I still don't know why auc-tex is not included standard in emacs). Note that command-line emacs is installed by default on your Mac, and Emacs in X-Windows can be installed via Fink or DarwinPorts. Also see Mindlube distribution (sparse, but can use Preview-LaTeX) See Emacs above (platform independent). Also see WizzyTeX below.
-
12/08/04
Free
Emacs: the AquaMacs Distribution
Unix editor ported to MacOS. See Enhanced Carbon Emacs (above) and Fink below.
AquaMacs is an Aqua-native build of the powerful Emacs text editor. By "Aqua-native," we mean more than just the fact that this version of Emacs runs as a standard OS X application.  AquaMacs features extensive customization that enables it to conform better with Apple's standard Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) than standard versions of the editor do.
See Emacs above (platform independent). Also see WizzyTeX below.
1.1
7/07
Free
Emacs: YACED (Yet Another Carbon Emacs Distribution)
Unix editor ported to MacOS. This project provides individual Apple Installer packages of Carbon Emacs for MacOS X 10.3 and 10.4 and AUCTeX packages for installation into Carbon Emacs. See Enhanced Carbon Emacs (above) and Fink below.
See Emacs above (platform independent). Also see WizzyTeX below.
0.9
4/5/05
Free
Equation Service
Equation renderer, Service to Cocoa applications (unfortunately, this does not include MS products such as power point). Can copy rendered equations to applications not supporting Services.
1.0
5/14/04
Free
Excalibur
Spelling utility, Service. Checks entire document, or just one word (LaTeX parsing, of course).
4.0.2
5/14/04
Free
Flashmode
Flashmode allows simultaneous typesetting of TeX documents as Textures did and still does in classic mode. 4 Versions. BBEdit/TeXniscope, TeXShop/TeXniscope, iTeXMac/iTeXMac, AlphaX/TeXniscope. Requires a G5 for all practical purposes.
depends
2/28/08
Freeware
Fink-X Window tools/editors (See Fink docs), teTeX...
This is really a package management system, but inside you find all of the unix (most?) that exist for using TeX, etc. Includes Emacs, teTeX, xdvi, ghostscript, ghostview, epstopdf, ps2pdf (note: Apple includes pstopdf which seems to work better for me)... It's a very long list. Also see Fink Commander for a GUI interface. For the Unix savvy/inclined/interested. Can be challenging to a novice.
NA
12/08/04
Free
the Fontspec package
This is a package for XeTeX that provides an interface to Mac OS X fonts in LaTeX with all access to advanced AAT and OpenType features. ?
3/23/05 Free
Fonts: OpenType TeX Fonts
Postscript Type 1 Latin Modern fonts to Opentype, including lots of non-standard TeX-like ligatures. Every fount is included in a total of 11 families.
Hermann Zapf's Euler maths fonts to OpenType; well, just the regular alphabets, actually, none of the symbols.
?
3/23/05 Free
Grapher (Already in your Utilities folder)
In the Applications/Utilities folder, there is a program called Grapher.app which you can use to correctly write equations for LaTeX. Make a 2D or 3D window and write the equation into Grapher. You can also use Grapher's different symbols. When you are finished, highlight the equation and command-click (right-click) and simply select "Copy LaTeX Expression." Now paste it into LaTeX
1.0
5/12/05
in OSX 10.4
i-Installer
Package management system with Cocoa GUI interface. Pre-compiled. Easier to install and use for the novice than Fink, but doesn't include everything else Fink does. Pretty complete for TeX usage, though it lacks editors included with Fink.
2.64
5/14/04
Free/Donation
iPapers
iPapers is an application that manages many PDF files of articles, whose information can be obtained by PubMed. Can export to XML which can be converted to bibtex.
1.9.4
7/17/07
Free
Ipe
Ipe is a drawing editor for creating figures in PDF or (encapsulated) Postscript format. It supports making small figures for inclusion into LaTeX-documents as well as making multi-page PDF presentations that can be shown on-line with Acrobat Reader.
6.0 preview 28
7/16/07
Free/Donation
iStorm
Editor/Collaboration Tool with TeX support.
3.4
5/14/04
Pay-ware
iTeXMac
Sophisticated Editor/Viewer/Front end for TeX. Highly customizable and flexible, which can be overwhelming to the novice (if so, stop customizing!). Similar to TeXShop, but with more features. Synchronization with its own editor or an external editor. Requires Engine. Also see TeXShop Macros.
1.3.15
5/14/04
Free
JabRef
GUI for managing BibTeX databases.
1.3.1
5/14/04
Free
JasTeX
JasTeX is a Graphical User Interface written in Java for GasTeX. GasTeX is a set of LaTeX macros which allow to easily draw graphs, automata, nets, diagrams, etc... under the picture environment of LaTeX.
1.0
4/16/06
Free
jEdit
Java-based Editor, supports multiple programming languages. (platform independent)
4.3prerelease 10
7/16/07
Free/Donation
jfig
2D graphics editor written in Java and based upon xfig. Output to LaTeX, PicTeX, Epic, Eepic, PDF... (platform independent)
3.08
7/16/07

jPicEdt
LaTeX Graphics Editor. Output to PsTricks, Epic, Eepic, LaTeX pic.
1.4pre-3
5/14/04
Free
jsMath
The jsMath package provides a method of including mathematics in HTML pages that works across multiple browsers under Windows, Macintosh OS X, Linux and other flavors of unix.
-
1/8/08
Free
LaTeX Equation Editor
Equation editor.
1.3
5/14/04
Free
latex2applehelp
latex2applehelp is a set of tools that converts a LaTeX source file to Apple Help files, with Apple-specific HTML tags and stylesheets.

10/4/05 Freeware (GNU)
LaTeXColorSelector
This tool allows you to select a color on screen, using the standard Mac OS X color-selection tools and create LaTeX color definitions from them.

9/29/04 Freeware
LaTeXiT
LaTeXiT is a small utility that allows you to quickly typeset LateX equation, without bothering with file creation, preambles etc. The PDF image obtained can then be exported by drag'n drop to any application supporting it.
1.15
7/31/08 Freeware
Local Switcher
Local Switcher allows the user to switch between several tex sources by setting a symlink texprograms in your home directory to the new tex source. The tex sources that are in prinicple available for the switches are "texlive/year", "texlive2005", and "tetex", i.e., they are offered as possible options to switch to. See also Switcher
1.5
12/31/06 Free
LyX on Aqua
WYSIWYG editor based on LaTeX. LyX produces high quality, professional output -- using LaTeX, an industrial strength typesetting engine, in the background; LyX is far more than a front-end to LaTeX, however. No knowledge of LaTeX is necessary to use LyX, although it will give a user more power. Requires LaTeX engine.
1.5.3
1/20/08 Free
MacDVIX
DVI file viewer with synchronization-with-editor support.
2.4
5/14/04 Shareware, $20
MacGhostView
Carbon Ghostscript/Viewer.
3.0
5/14/04
Shareware, $20
MacPorts
Package manager system, includes everything you need to use TeX+, including editors, engines, etc. For the Unix savvy/inclined/interested. Can be challenging to a novice. 1.5
7/17/07
Free
MacTeX TUG distribution
All-in-one distribution of select tools by the TeX Users Group Mac Users Group. Contains everything you need to get started with a few extras (not necessarily everything you may want to try, but certainly a good all-in-one starting point.
-
9/18/07
-
MacQTeX
Randomized Test/Quiz System
1.0
12/27/05
GPL (free)
Make X11 Ready
Utility to enable x11 tools to work with TeX/LaTeX
1.0
6/17/06
GPL (free)
MathTran
MathTran provides translation of TeX encoded mathematics to bitmap images as a web service. This makes it easy to put mathematics on your web pages.
-
1/8/08 free
MathType
Equation Editor. Upgrade of standard MS Word equation editor. (Exports to LaTeX)
5
5/11/04 $129 ($99 academic) - 30 day free trial
Matlab/Octave tools
matrix2tex.m converts matlab/octave matrices to latex table/matrix format (you set the environment in your doc).
poly2tex.m converts matlab/octave polynomials to latex equations.
latexcmd.m Creates a LaTeX file with commands named as the corresponding Matlab variables.
-
8/25/06 Free
OcTeX
TeX Editor
1.2
8/29/07
Freeware (for non-commercial use)
OmniOutliner LaTeX Export
Translator from OmniOutlines format.
-

Freeware
OzTeX
Front End, Engine, and DVI viewer. Relatively complete and simple. Requires external editor.
5.2
7/16/07 Share: $30
Papers
PDF file manager, uses BibDesk code to export to bibtex format. Very cool connection to PubMed. Doesn't currently support all bibtex fields, though, so not 100% compatible with BibDesk.
1.1
7/17/07 29 Euros
PDF Nup Maker
Tool, Merge PDFs for printing.
1.0
5/13/03 Free
PDFJam
Droplets for OS X that use pdfTeX to manipulate PDF files.
1.10
9/28/04 Free
PDFLAB
PDFLab lets you split and join PDF documents as well as insert images and blank pages. You will also be able to easily create PDF documents out of several images.
1.1
2/2/05 Free
pdftk
If PDF is electronic paper, then pdftk is an electronic staple-remover, hole-punch, binder, secret-decoder-ring, and X-Ray-glasses. Pdftk is a command-line tool for doing everyday things with PDF documents. Command line only.
1.12
2/2/05 Free
PDFView
Discontinued. Please see Skim.
0.14.3
5/16/07 Free
Presenter2
A full-screen pdf displayer. It uses Quartz and produces better results when displaying line art than Acrobat. Complex images are rendered off-screen and then displayed, resulting in smoother and faster page-flips. An alternate to Preview in Tiger, which no longer is appropriate for presentations. See also hints
5/8/05 Freeware
RPN2TeX
Equation editor using RPN input format (like HP calculator). Website is in Japanese, but Babel Fish can translate it.
0.6.1
5/14/04 ?
Scientific Assistant
Front end, engine, viewer, editor.
0.9.9a
5/14/04 Pay: $129
SciTE
SciTE is a SCIntilla based Text Editor. Originally built to demonstrate Scintilla, it has grown to be a generally useful editor with facilities for building and running programs.
1.60
6/14/05 free
SimpleTeX4ht
TeX to html GUI interface. No GUI for advanced options (you need to look at the man pages).
0.8
5/7/04 free
Skim
PDFkit-based PDF reader and note-taker for OS X with support for PS/DVI. Supports pdfsync, automatic updates from disk, and previews of internal links. From the makers of BiBdesk.
0.51
7/17/07 Free
Smultron
Open-source text editor written in Cocoa for Mac OS X Panther with many of the features that you might need. (vague, but terse)
2.2.7
3/24/07 free
Spotlight Importers
These tools allow Spotlight (10.4+) to include TeX files (s described) into the spotlight database.
To add .bib files: BibImporter
To add .dvi files: DVIImporter
To index all the .tex, .latex, and .texi files that Carbon Emacsen write: LaTeXMDImporter

5/3/05 free
SubEthaEdit
Collaborative Text Editor (CVS like capabilities- but simpler) with LaTeX support.
2.0.1
9/28/04 free
Switcher
Switcher allows the user to setting a global symlink to texprograms. The tex sources that are in prinicple available for the switches are "texlive/year", "texlive2005", and "tetex", i.e., they are offered as possible options to switch to.
1.1
12/31/06 Free
Symbols
A reference of special characters for LaTeX, HTML, and the Mac OS X keyboard. In LaTeX and HTML modes, clicking on a symbol will place the code for that symbol on the clipboard.
1.0
9/1/05 free
TCOBrowser
TCOBrowser provides an easy way for Mac OS X users to access documentation and information about TeX and TeX-related packages available through CTAN, as well as some of the documentation on their local system.
0.6 beta
6/16/04
Free
TeX FoG
TeX FoG (TeX (Fo)rmula (G)raphic user interface) is an equation editor to be used for typing TeX and LaTeX equations without the need to remember all the commands.
1.2.1
5/14/04
Free
TeXmaker
Sophisticated Editor (platform independent)
1.2
7/11/05 Free
TeXniscope
TeXniscope is a DVI/PDF previewer for MacOSX. It has been supplanted by Skim.
0.3.2
7/17/07 Free
TexPoint
TexPoint is a Microsoft Powerpoint add-in that enables the easy use of LaTeX symbols and formulas in Powerpoint presentations.
2.8.1
3/3/06 $25 (shareware)
TeX Scripts BBEdit
Utils for BBEdit. See BBEdit above and TeX Scripts (below).
1.08
12/16/03 Free
TeX Scripts
A collection of shell and applescripts that facilitate typesetting and the use of various TeX tools like makeindex, metapost, bibtex, and tex4ht, e.g., it is possible to produce a html output from a source file by a simple click. Five small applications, droplets, are also included, named pdfselect, flip folder (end of line converter), dvipdf, ps2pdf, and dvipdfh.
1.08
12/16/03 Free
TeXShell
GUI interface to command line TeX tools.
1.5.1
10/18/03 Free
TeXShop
Front end, editor, viewer. First Cocoa application. Similar to iTeXMac, but more streamlined. Synchronization with its own editor. Requires Engine. Also see TeXShop Macros. 10.3.9 or less: 1.37
10.4 or higher: 2.07
1/16/06 Free
TeXShop Macros
Macros for creating and manipulating tables/arrays in TeXShop & iTeXMac. ?
3/23/05 Free
TeXTable
TeXTable is a simple-to-use editor for LaTeX tables. The table may be edited cell-by-cell, or in text format, allowing fast changes with both approaches. Additionally, transformations may be applied to groups of cells, such as transposition or surrounding their text with $$. 0.2 12/1/07 Free
TextMate
TextMate attempts to bring Apple's approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike. With a wealth of exclusive features like tabs, foldings, and macros...
1.5.5
3/21/07 €39
TeXType
It is yet another equation creator using TeX. It supports standard Cmd-Copy/Cmd-Paste, allows drag&drop, and has LinkBack support. It even auto-compiles. 0.2
4/21/05 Free
TextWrangler
Feature-reduced editor like BBEdit. Successor to BBEdit Lite. Also see BBEdit plug-ins. 2.1.1
11/28/05 Free
TeXwiz
TeXwiz is a document creation wizard for LaTeX documents that supports many of the extremely useful features provided by KOMA script. 1.0.1
7/11/05 Free (GPL)
TUG MacTeX distributions
Almost (to be politically correct) verything you need all in one simple installation process. Not necessarily everything you WANT, but probably the best starting point.
-
1/1/06
GPL (free)
VI Input Manager
This bundle patches the Cocoa Text System to add a Vi-like command mode. After entering command-mode (typically, by hitting escape in Vi), ordinary Vi commands can be typed and the text field will be updated accordingly. Essentially, this add Vi command functionality (albeit a small subset) to any (and all) text editors that use the Cocoa text system; e.g., Safari, TeXShop, XCode, etc.
0.2
10/14/06 Free
Vim
Powerful Unix editor (Carbon app) that supports multiple programming engines. The other side of the Unix editor battle with Emacs.
6.2.472
5/14/04 Free
WARMFigToPDF
A system for labeling figures generated with Adobe Illustrator.
4.0.3
9/28/04 Free
WizzyTeX
WhizzyTeX is an Emacs minor mode for incrementally viewing LATEX documents that you are editing. It works under Unix with gv and xdvi viewers, but the ActiveDVI viewer will provide much better visual effects and offer more functionalities.
1.2.2
4/7/05 Free
WARMFigToPDF
A system for labeling figures generated with Adobe Illustrator.
4.0.3
9/28/04 Free
WordService
This service provides 34 functions to convert, format or speak the currently selected text, to insert data or to show statistics of the selection within all Cocoa applications (for example TextEdit, Mail, or TeXShop) and Carbon applications supporting services. Features: Reformat, Remove line attachments/endings/links/multiple spaces/multiple feeds/quotes, Trim line beginnings/line endings/lines, Sort lines ascending/descending, Shift left/light, Initial caps of words/sentences, All caps & lowercase, Mac/Windows/Unix line endings, Rotate 13, Straight/Smart Quotes, Encode/Decode tabs, Insert date/date & time/time/contents of path, Speak native/german text, Statistics.

5/5/05 Shareware
XcodeLaTeX
XcodeLaTeX is a set of Xcode specification files that setup limited LaTeX functionality within Apple's Xcode IDE
0.3
11/7/03 Free
XEmacs
See Emacs above. This is an off-shoot of emacs that is free, include a lof of extras, but... well, it's along story. Go to the XEmacs web site and the Emacs web site if you care about the dispute, but the site for Mac info is to the left. Unfortunately, the Carbon version doesn't work as well as the Carbon version of emacs. I recommend using the X-windows version in Fink or DarwinPorts if you want to use it.
21.5.9
5/14/04
Free
XeTeX
A typesetting system based on a merger of the venerable TeX system with Unicode and Mac OS X font technologies. Available as an i-Package.
0.7
5/20/04 Free


External Editor: Can call an external editor, instead of using its own.
Viewer: Can view "compiled" files in one format or another.
Ghost Script: An essential utility in days past. Now simply very helpful. You'll want to have it one way or another. rvice: This can be used transparently from within applications that support MacOS X services. Just install CocoAspell and you'll know what a Service is. .
Current version: as of the date in `last updated', to the best of my knowledge.
?: I don't know, and haven't had the chance to track down the answer. If you do, please fill me in.
License: Prices as of the date in `last updated'. Price listed is for a typical non-discounted installation unless otherwise stated. Educational/student/upgrade pricing is often available.
Dates: Dates are listed in USA format, month/day/year. At least we're not using English units!


The content of this page is FROZEN. Please see theNew MacTeX pages

Inevitable corrections? Please . Last updated Friday, February 29, 2008 at 07:53:58.