[R-SIG-Mac] “pdflatex is not available” from “R CMD check”

[Marc Schwartz]

On Jan 26, 2015, at 6:20 PM, Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at prodsyse.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello:  
> 
> 
> 	  What should I do to diagnose and fix “pdflatex is not available” from “R CMD check” on a Mac running OS X 10.10.1 (see below for more details including sessionInfo.)?  
> 
> 
> 	  A blog on "Building R packages: missing path to pdflatex” (http://www.r-bloggers.com/building-r-packages-missing-path-to-pdflatex/ <http://www.r-bloggers.com/building-r-packages-missing-path-to-pdflatex/>) suggested the following:  
> 
> 
> Sys.which("pdflatex”) 
> # "" 
> Sys.getenv("PATH")
> # [1] "/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin”
> 
> 
> 	  However, the suggested fix did not work for me.  
> 
> 
> 		    1.  How can I determine if pdflatex is installed?  
> 
> 
> 		    2.  If it is, how can I find it?  If it’s not, what i the recommended install procedure?  
> 
> 
> 	  Thanks 
> 	  Spencer Graves
> 
> 
> ##########
> 
> 
>> R CMD check … 
> ...
> * checking PDF version of manual ... WARNING
> LaTeX errors when creating PDF version.
> This typically indicates Rd problems.
> * checking PDF version of manual without hyperrefs or index ... ERROR
> Re-running with no redirection of stdout/stderr.
> Hmm ... looks like a package
> Error in texi2dvi(file = file, pdf = TRUE, clean = clean, quiet = quiet,  : 
>  pdflatex is not available
> Error in texi2dvi(file = file, pdf = TRUE, clean = clean, quiet = quiet,  : 
>  pdflatex is not available
> Error in running tools::texi2pdf()
> You may want to clean up by 'rm -rf /var/folders/mh/mrm_14nx19g13lsnj9zmvwjr0000gn/T//RtmpjOTCtB/Rd2pdf1651fa89c1’


Spencer,

First question would be, have you installed MacTex, which includes all the required components?

If not, then visit:

  https://tug.org/mactex/

MacTex 2014 is the current version. There are also some Yosemite specific notes here:

  http://www.tug.org/mactex/yosemite.html

The package should modify your $PATH upon installation, so that it includes:

  /usr/texbin

and Sys.which("pdflatex") in the R console run from the OS X terminal should return:

> Sys.which("pdflatex") 
              pdflatex 
"/usr/texbin/pdflatex" 


I would check:

  $PATH

and:

  which pdflatex

from the OS X terminal (not in an R session), just to be sure that you don't get different results there, as compared to what you are getting in R. In theory, the OS X terminal should provide the definitive response, whereas running some applications/GUI's, may not pick up (inherit) the system path.

You can also check:

  ls /usr/texbin

which contains links to the actual installation in:

  ls /usr/local/texlive/2014/bin/x86_64-darwin

to see if MacTex 2014 has been installed (it should show a large number of files and links, including pdflatex). If you have a prior version, then the path would be:

  ls /usr/local/texlive/YYYY/...


Regards,

Marc Schwartz