TeXShop, LaTeX and fink
Since I had to compose some documentation for my job earlier today, I decided to finish my LaTeX installation on my Mac Mini.
Since I did start the installation process a while back, I had to see what was missing. I already had installed the LaTex Package (tetex) from fink so the only thing missing was a graphical frontend. I must admit that GNU nano is great, but it has its limitations. And since I am a big fan of syntax coloring, I had to leave my Terminal.app behind.
Knowing that Talie is using TeXShop, I decided to look on Google if something else was available. To my own surprise, a lot of graphical frontends are from OS 8 and have been Carbonized to work on OS X.
Well... even if Carbonized apps can run natively, I like the idea of programs being written from OS X and not from an old cheap OS. Looking through the list, the only app written for OS X was indeed TeXShop, so I decided to try the new version.
Since I had already upgraded to Tiger, I could use the new version. And Oh Boy I'm Glad!
I am amazed on how a small app can do so much. It took me 5 minutes to get used to Command-T for building and Command-Click for finding the text in the PDF document. Thirty minutes later, my work was done, and I was an happy fullfilled men.
So thank you Mr. TeXShop and Mr. fink
So just to wrap up, if you are a LaTeX fan (the typesetting language, not the condoms!), you need to:
- Go fetch fink
- Do a
fink install tetex - Go fetch TeXShop
- Change some prefs to use LaTeX from fink instead of i-Installer
- Typeset beautiful documents and leave Word behind!
