path: root/support/latexmk/INSTALL

            INSTALLING latexmk
            ==================
      (Version 4.82a, 10 Jan. 2024)

            John Collins
            Physics Department
            Penn State University
            104 Davey Lab, Box 208
            University Park PA 16802
            U.S.A.  

            https://www.cantab.net/users/johncollins/
            https://www.cantab.net/users/johncollins/latexmk/
            username jcc8 at node psu.edu

Latexmk is a "make" tool for building latex documents. It runs latex
and/or pdflatex the appropriate number of times to resolve cross
references etc, and, if necessary, it also runs makeindex and/or
bibtex (or biber) and other programs when appropriate.  Then it can
make postscript or pdf files, print the result or preview it, as
requested.  It can also be set to run continuously with a previewer;
the latex program, etc, are then rerun whenever one of the source
files is modified.  Latexmk automatically determines file dependencies
from the LaTeX .log and .fls files.

Latexmk can be installed and used on UNIX (including LINUX and OS-X),
and MS Windows (tested under WinXP and some later versions).  It can
presumably be used on other systems with suitable customization.

On all systems, the prequisites are

a.  A working installation of Perl.  (See http://www.cpan.org/ if you don't
    have one.  Modern UNIX-like systems, particularly linux and OS-X, often
    have perl installed by default.  As for MSWindows, the TeXLive
    distribution (2009 or later) includes Perl, and in the default
    configuration also includes latexmk.)

b.  A working installation of TeX and LaTeX.  (See http://www.ctan.org/ if
    you don't have one.)

c.  In addition, the installation of TeX and LaTex should, of course,
    contain the packages etc that are needed for your specific
    documents to be compiled and processed.


!!!!  IMPORTANT NOTES:  !!!!
============================

1. If you have installed a distribution of TeX and friends, you will
probably find that latexmk is already installed on your computer.  This
applies to both the TeXLive and the MiKTeX distributions (Note that MacTeX
on OS-X incorporates TeXLive, so anything said about TeXLive also applies
to MacTeX.)  If you have only installed a subset of packages, e.g., because
you installed BasicTeX, then the subset may or may not include latexmk; in
that case you should be able to use your distribution's package manager to
install latexmk.  Having latexmk installed by a TeX distribution is
normally the recommended way to be able to use latexmk.

2. The only extra requirement beyond having latexmk installed is to have an
installation of Perl. See above.

3. You will normally need to use the manual installation method below if
you have a special need for it.  However, you should still examine the
information on configuration below and in the main documentation to get
latexmk working exactly as you want it.

4. You can test whether latexmk is already properly installed by trying the
command "latexmk -v" from the command line.  If this succeeds, then latexmk
is already installed and will report its version number.  Otherwise, if you
are using TeXLive or MacTeX, then you can simply use its package manager to
get latexmk installed, the same as for any other missing package.

BUT, you may need to configure latexmk to adjust its behavior to suit your
needs. See item 6 below, as well as the full documentation, for further
information.


**Manual** installation on UNIX/LINUX/OS-X
==========================================

(Power users can modify these as appropriate, of course.)

NOTE: If you are using TeXLive 2009 or later, or a moderately recent
version of MiKTeX, you can install latexmk simply by using the TeXLive
package manager (that includes users of MacTeX).  In fact, depending on how
much of TeXLive or MiKTeX you have already installed, latexmk may already
have been installed.  In that case you don't normally need to bother with
the manual installation explained below.  Still you may need to examine the
configuration instructions see item 6.

1.  Make sure you have working installations of Perl and TeX/LaTeX.

2.  Put the file latexmk.pl in a directory for executable files.  For
    example, for a system-wide installation, you could put it in
    /usr/local/bin.  But if you are an ordinary user, you can put the
    file somewhere where you have access, and ensure that the PATH
    environment variable includes the directory where latexmk is
    installed.

    If you are using MS-Windows, go to the corresponding items in the
    instructions for Windows.

3.  Rename this file to latexmk.

4.  Make sure latexmk is executable, e.g., by using chmod suitably.
        [Special case, which you probably don't have to be concerned with:
        You **may** also find it necessary to change the first line of the
        script so that perl can be found to execute latexmk.  Currently the
        first line is #!/usr/bin/env perl, which uses the program
        /usr/bin/env to find perl, provided only that the perl executable
        can be found in the PATH for executables.  This insulates latexmk
        from the fact that the Perl executable has a system-dependent
        location. The program /usr/bin/env is present on almost all modern
        UNIX-type systems, including linux and macOS.]

5.  (Optional) Copy the file latexmk.1 to an appropriate directory for man
    pages, e.g., /usr/local/man/man1/.

    Alternatively, or in addition, put the file latexmk.pdf in a
    suitable place for pdf files for documentation.

6.  Check whether the commands used by latexmk for executing latex etc are
    correct or need changes.  See below for how to do this in a
    configuration file, and the documentation for further information.

    The commands you particularly have to worry about are those for
    previewing files (set by the variables $pdf_previewer, $ps_previewer,
    and $dvi_previwer), and most importantly $pscmd, and its associated
    variable $pid_position --- see below.  The command $pscmd is the least
    obvious: it runs the command ps and is used in preview_continuous_mode
    to determine whether a previewer is already running.  The format of the
    output of ps is highly system dependent.  Latexmk should get it right
    under LINUX and macOS.

    To know what the current settings are, run

       latexmk --commands

    from the command line.

    If latexmk does not get one of more of these commands correct, put an
    override in a startup file:

    a.  For a system-wide installation, the correction can be in the
        system startup file, which on a UNIX-like operating system is any
        one of
        
           /etc/LatexMk,
           /opt/local/share/latexmk/LatexMk,
           /usr/local/share/latexmk/LatexMk,
           /usr/local/lib/latexmk/LatexMk,
           /etc/latexmkrc,
           /opt/local/share/latexmk/latexmkrc,
           /usr/local/share/latexmk/latexmkrc,
           /usr/local/lib/latexmk/latexmkrc.
           
        (You get to choose which, but only one.  If none of these
        directories is appropriate you'll need to modify latexmk.pl.)

        Those directories apply to Unix-like operating systems (including
        linux and macOS).  On MS-Windows, the system start-up file is one
        of C:\latexmk\LatexMk C:\latexmk\latexmkrc (If you happen to use
        Cygwin, latexmk combines both the MS-Windows and the Unix
        possibilities.)

    b.  You can also/instead put the configuration lines in the user
        startup file, which is the file .latexmkrc in your home directory.

        (Under normal circumstances, latexmk's definition of home
        directory under Unix-like operating systems is the usual one,
        i.e., the value in the environment variable HOME. Under
        MS-Windows, a user's home directory is normally the directory
        of the user profile, as given in the environment variable
        USERPROFILE.  In general, latexmk takes a user's home
        directory to be the directory specified in the first of the
        environment variables HOME and USERPROFILE that is non-empty.)

    The startup files are written in Perl, so possible overrides are like

        $latex = 'unusual_program_to_run_instead_of_normal_latex %O %S';

    for changing the program to run latex, and

        $pscmd = 'ps -aeg';
        $pid_position = 1;

    for the ps command.  Here, $pid_position = 1 indicates that the
    process ID number is in the first column of the output of the
    command ps.

    See the latexmk documentation for more details.

7.  If you need any modifications on the commands for running previewers,
    like gv, note that prefixing a command by start, as in 

        $ps_previewer = 'start gv -watch %O %S';

    ensures that the command is run detached, as is normally appropriate
    for a previewer.  

    (In the examples above, there appear the strings %O and %S.  See
    the documenation for details.  They are placeholders used when
    latexmk constructs the command line.  %O denotes any options
    latexmk wants to add to the command invocation, and %S denotes the
    source file.)

8.  You may also want to change the defaults on what kinds of output
    file latexmk makes.  By default latexmk makes dvi files, but not
    postscript or pdf files.  If you (or people on your system)
    generally make pdf files using pdflatex, it would be a good idea
    to put the following in an appropriate initialization file:

            $pdf_mode = 1;
            $postscript_mode = 0;
            $dvi_mode = 0;

    See step 6 for the locations of the initialization/configuration files
    where you should put these lines.


**Manual** Installation on MS-Windows
=====================================

(Power users can modify these as appropriate.)

NOTE: If you are using TeXLive 2009 or later, you can install latexmk
simply by using the TeXLive package manager.  In fact, depending on
how much of TeXLive you have already installed, latexmk may already
have been installed.  In that case you don't normally need to bother
with the manual installation explained below.

Similarly if you have MiKTeX, you can install latexmk by using
MiKTeX's package manager.  But to allow latexmk to work, you will also
need to install a distribution of Perl if you haven't done so already.

In either of these cases you don't normally need to bother with the manual
installation explained below.  Still you may need to examine the
configuration instructions see item 6.


1.  Make sure you have working installations of Perl and TeX/LaTeX,
    complete with viewers for dvi, postscript and/or pdf files.  You will
    also need whatever packages your document needs.  

2.  If necessary, unpack the latexmk distribution.  

3.  **Difference compared with UNIX-type systems**: Copy the file
    latexmk.pl to a suitable directory and arrange for it to be invoked as
    a command.  See the following sentences for what "suitable directory"
    means. One way to ensure that you can invoke the latexmk command is to
    also put the file latexmk.cmd in the same directory, and then follow
    the next instructions:

    If the directory in the previous step is NOT already in the search path
    for executable files, arrange for this, by adjusting the environment
    variable PATH suitably.  In Windows, there is a Control Panel setting
    for this.  (It should be under Advanced system settings->Environment
    variables.)  Log out and back in to make sure the changed setting gets
    used.

    Note: Each of TeXLive and MiKTeX make a suitable change to the PATH
    environment variable, so that all the programs they install are
    usable, including latexmk.

4.  You may need to reboot, or at least logoff and log back in, if you made
    any changes to PATH.

5.  Concerning invocation of latexmk:  See later items.

6.  (Optional) Copy documentation file(s) to a suitable directory.  The
    only requirement on the directory is your convenience: i.e., some
    convenient place to look up documentation. The relevant files are
    latexmk.txt which is a pure ASCII text file, and latexmk.pdf which is a
    postscript file.

7.  Test out the installation at the command-line prompt (cmd.exe or Power
    Shell): 

    a. First do

            latexmk --version

       This should show you the version number of latexmk.  If this works
       latexmk is accessible.  If not, you will have to figure out what
       did not work in the previous steps.

    b. Then change to a directory where you have a good LaTeX file.
       Suppose the file is paper.tex.  Delete any pre-existing dvi file,
       so that latexmk is forced to remake the output files.  The
       following commands will check out the main features of latexmk:

            latexmk paper
            latexmk -pv paper
            latexmk -pv -ps paper

       The first command will create the dvi file, running latex a
       suitable number of times, and additionally running bibtex and
       makeindex, but only if needed.  The second command will open a
       viewer of the dvi file.  The third command will create a postscript
       file, and then open a viewer for it.

    c. If the above works, you are done.  If not, you will have to figure
       out what is wrong, and correct it.  FIRST, READ THE DOCUMENTATION!
       The normal problems are that the names for the commands used by
       latexmk are incorrect for your system, or they are not present on
       your system.  See the next item for how to customize latexmk.
       Also LOOK AT THE SECTION NAMED "TRICKY POINTS" below to see some
       hints. 

8.  If the commands used by latexmk are incorrect, see the UNIX
    installation instructions for what to do.  The only changes needed
    from the UNIX instructions are: 

    a.  The system initialization file is either C:\latexmk\LatexMk or
        C:\latexmk\latexmkrc.  (If these is not suitable for some reason,
        you'll need to change the latexmk.pl file where this filename
        appears.  But normally it's easier to change the user latexmkrc
        file --- see the next item.)

    b.  The user initialization file is .latexmkrc in the directory
        specified by the environment variable HOME, if that happens to be
        defined, which it normally isn't.  If there is no HOME variable,
        then the file is in the directory specified by the environment
        variable USERPROFILE, which should have been set by the MS-Windows
        operating system at login.


       
Other systems
=============

For other systems you are on your own.  The instructions for
UNIX/LINUX and MS-Windows should help you to see what to do.  Let me
know (username jcc8 at node psu.edu) what happens, so that I
can update these instructions and possibly latexmk as well.


Tricky points
=============
(These aren't so much issues about installation as about use of latexmk.)

1.  BEWARE of filenames with double extensions, for example, two.part.tex.
    The behavior of TeX-related software is not consistent in this
    situation.  You may, for example, find a log file named two.log or
    two.part.log, depending on which version of which implementation of
    TeX/LaTeX you use.  Naturally, there is a possibility in this situation
    that latexmk will get confused, and not recognize, for example, that a
    dvi or other file has been generated.  Latexmk has configuration
    variables to deal with some of the possibilities, so you could try
    playing with them --- see the code.  But it general, it is best to
    avoid such double extensions: they make your files non-portable.  Do
    something like two-part.tex or two_part.tex instead.

2.  Filenames and directory names with spaces in them can potentially cause
    problems.  Much software tends to interpret spaces as separators
    between different filenames or between filenames and other text.  This
    coul cause problems in some of the programs called by latexmk.

    Even so, file and directory names containing spaces generally cause no
    problems in both latexmk and the programs it calls.

3.  Non-ASCII characters in file and directory names: In the current
    version of latexmk and current TeXLive and MiKTeX, these are generally
    handled correctly, particular on linux and macOS systems.

    But it is worth being aware there is a potential for problems: (a) Default
    installations of MS-Windows do not make all Unicode characters in
    filenames available to Perl and hence latexmk.  (b) Some annoying
    issues may arise if you transfer files from a macOS HFS+ volume to a
    volume used by another operating system for use with that OS.  These
    problems concern different ways of normalizing filenames containing
    accented characters, and may entail renaming the transferred files.

4.  If you need to remake documentation files, e.g., latexmk.pdf or
    latexmk.txt, from the man page file latexmk.1, the following
    commands work (on my linux and OS-X systems at least):

    Postscript file from latexmk.1:

        groff -Tps -man-old -rcR=0 latexmk.1 > latexmk.ps

    Pdf file from postscript:

        ps2pdf latexmk.ps latexmk.pdf

    Text file:

        groff -Tascii -man-old -rcR=0 latexmk.1 > latexmk.txt



Credits
=======

The original version of this program was called 'go', and written by David
Musliner.  That version is Copyright 1992 by David J. Musliner and The
University of Michigan.

Version 2 was modified by Evan McLean.

The current version is by John Collins (username jcc8 at node
psu.edu) -- other contact details at the top.  It is copyright
1998-2022 by John Collins, and the previous authors; see the copyright
notice in the latexmk.pl file, which gives permission to use, copy,
modify, and distribute this software and its documentation under the
terms of the GNU Public License v. 2.