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

[David Winsemius]

On Feb 22, 2015, at 6:31 AM, Marc Schwartz wrote:

> 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”) 

That had fancy-quotes. When corrected I see:

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

When I run that in a Terminal session I get (nothing) whereas I do have MacTex installed:

david-winsemiuss-mac-pro:~ davidwinsemius$ which pdflatex
david-winsemiuss-mac-pro:~ davidwinsemius$  ls /usr/texbin
T1Wrap			dvilj			gftopk			mktexpk			pooltype		texdiff
a2ping			dvilj2p			gftype			mktextfm		ppower4			texdirflatten
afm2afm			dvilj4			gsftopk			mllatex			ps2eps			texdoc
afm2pl			dvilj4l			hbf2gf			mltex			ps2frag			texdoctk

Snipped output....

> 
> 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/...

The paths for Terminal sessions are different than for R sessions (and I'm the wrong person to ask why, or how to synchronize, or even whether they _should_ be synchronized.)


> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Marc Schwartz
> 
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David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA