There are many choices to use LaTex on macOS, in previous post, this guide to use MikTex with VSCode on Windows, now, I changed to use macOs so I choose MacTex with VSCode for more simple. I tried Miktex on macOs but there are many issue and toooooo tke time to fix.
MacTex
MacTeX-2025 requires macOS 10.14 or higher. These systems are named Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia. It runs natively on both Arm and Intel machines.
That means, If you use the Apple Silicon chip or Intel chip, that would be fine. MacTeX installs TeX Live, which contains TeX, LaTeX, AMS-TeX, and virtually every TeX-related style file and font, and TeX Live is compiled from the same sources for all platforms: Macintosh, Windows, Linux, Unix.
You probably down the Minimal version and Full version of:
- MacTeX.pkg. The Size is 6.0G – 08 March 2025. The MD5 sum is 9c0adf674d1a97d1925bc9acad39b10b
- BasicTeX – A Smaller Distribution. The Size is 117M – 08 March 2025
The MD5 sum is dc75c2ff418a71228e4a9f798dfda8a7
Note:
MacTex:
- MacTex will be installed in a separate location
/usr/local/texlive/2025. - MacTeX writes a symbolic link
/Library/TeX/texbinwhich indirectly points to the TeX Live binary directory. Configure your GUI programs to use this link. The GUI programs we supply will automatically configure themselves. - MacTeX also installs the GUI programs TeXShop, LaTeXiT, TeX Live Utility, and BibDesk.
- MacTeX is a very large package.
Basic Tex:
- Installed in a separate location
/usr/local/texlive/2025basic. - Writes a symbolic link
/Library/TeX/texbin, only contains the TeX Live piece of the full distribution; it does not contain GUI programs or Ghostscript. To use TeX on the Mac, it suffices to install BasicTeX and a front end.- TeXShop, a front end
- LaTeXiT, a package which typesets equations to be pasted into Keynote, etc.
- TeX Live Utility, a program to update and maintain TeX Live
- BibDesk, a program to handle bibliographies
To install packages:
sudo tlmgr install {package}with package from https://ctan.org/pkg/
LaTex Workshop and VSCode
Run
The extension will Compile/Recompile the Tex file on Save.