MiKTeX is both a modern C/C++ implemenentation of TeX & Friends and a TeX distribution.

The MiKTeX Project Page is the place to go, if you want to learn more about MiKTeX.

This readme file is located in the top-level directory of the MiKTeX source code tree.

The MiKTeX source code allows you to build and install a bare TeX system ("Just enough TeX").

MiKTeX provides an integrated package manager, which can automatically download and install missing packages. Thus:

• you start with MiKTeX executables and man pages
• in the course of authoring your documents: only necessary packages will be downloaded and installed

MiKTeX can be built on Windows and Unix-like (including macOS) systems. Please consult these HOWTOs for platform-specific build instructions:

• https://miktex.org/howto/build-win
• https://miktex.org/howto/build-unx
• https://miktex.org/howto/build-mac

In addition, you can try one of the Dockerized build environments to build MiKTeX:

• Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04
• Debian 9
• Fedora 28
• openSUSE Leap 15

• C/C++ compiler

  Building MiKTeX requires a modern C/C++ compiler. The minimum required standard versions are C99 and C++14.

• CMake

  The MiKTeX build is driven by CMake, a tool which will create Makefiles suited for the local system. The minimum required CMake version is 3.7.0.

• Various build utilities

  In addition to the compiler and the CMake build system, you will need these utilities:

  All platforms:

  • cat
  • sed
  • xsltproc

  Windows only:

  • fop
  • hhc
  • makehm
  • mc
  • midl
  • mt
  • pandoc

• Libraries

  On Unix-like platforms (including macOS), you will need development packages for these libraries:

  • apr
  • aprutil
  • bzip2
  • cairo
  • expat
  • fontconfig
  • freetype2
  • fribidi
  • gd
  • gmp
  • graphite2
  • harfbuzz-icu
  • hunspell
  • icu
  • jpeg
  • log4cxx
  • lzma
  • mpfr
  • mspack
  • LibreSSL (or OpenSSL)
  • pixman
  • png
  • poppler
  • poppler-qt5
  • popt
  • uriparser
  • zzip

Please consult the platform-specific HOWTO, for more information.

It is recommended that you build outside the source code directory:

cmake ../source

Here you have to specify the path to the MiKTeX source code directory (../source in the example above).

CMake for Windows may require a generator specification. If you want to generate Makefiles for nmake, run this:

cmake -G "NMake Makefiles" ../source

When running CMake to generate the Makefiles, it is possible to set build variables as follows:

cmake -DVAR1=VAL1 -DVAR2=VAL2 ...

The most useful build variables are:

• CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=PATH

  The installation directory used by make install (see below). This variable defaults to /usr/local on Unix-like systems (including macOS).

  Suitable prefixes are:

  • $HOME/miktex

    Use this prefix, if you want to install MiKTeX just for yourself. No administrator privileges are required.

  • /opt/miktex

    Use this prefix, if you want to create a self-contained MiKTeX setup which does not conflict with other system packages.

• WITH_UI_QT=OFF

  Don't build UI applications.

Run the Make utility to build MiKTeX, for example:

make

or, if you build with NMake on Windows:

nmake

CMake has created a standard install target which you can use to install everything in the standard location (see the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX description above). On Linux, you would run

make install

This will install MiKTeX in the /usr/local-prefixed directory tree.

Most of the MiKTeX executables are prefixed with miktex-. For example, the file name of the pdfTeX executable is miktex-pdftex. You can create symbolic links targetting the miktex- prefixed executables:

initexmf --admin --mklinks

After running this command, the pdfTeX engine can be invoked as pdftex, provided that pdftex did not exist before (use the --force option to overwrite existing files).

The --mklinks option will also create symbolic links for format files and scripts. For example, you can invoke pdflatex (pdfTeX with format pdflatex loaded) and latexmk (wrapper for the Perl script latexmk.pl).

On Unix-like platforms, you can use the DESTDIR mechanism in order to relocate the whole installation:

make DESTDIR=/home/jane install

This will install everything using the installation prefix (CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX) prepended with the DESTDIR value, which finally gives /home/jane/usr/local.

The DESTDIR mechanism is helpful if you want to understand what make install installs where.

You are now at a point where you have the MiKTeX executables, some configuration files and man pages.

It is recommended that you install some packages now:

mpm --admin --install=amsfonts --install=ltxbase

Package amsfonts contains Type1 fonts for the traditional TeX fonts (aka "Computer Modern"). Package ltxbase contains the LaTeX document preparation system.

If disk space is not an issue, you can "upgrade" your MiKTeX installation. This is usually not recommended when you use MiKTeX just for yourself. But it might make sense if you are maintaining a system-wide MiKTeX installation.

To upgrade to a basic MiKTeX installation, run

mpm --admin --verbose --package-level=basic --upgrade

In order to make newly installed font map files available for the various TeX engines, you must run

initexmf --admin --mkmaps

These are the final steps: update the file name database again:

initexmf --admin --update-fndb

If you used the --admin option to set up a shared MiKTeX installation, remove the user .miktex directory:

rm -fr ~/.miktex

You can now test the MiKTeX setup by running

miktex-pdflatex sample2e

or, if you want to omit the miktex- prefix:

pdflatex sample2e

This will create the PDF file sample.pdf.

In order to validate the MiKTeX setup, you can run the MiKTeX test suite.

If you want to completely wipe out MiKTeX, you have to

• remove symbolic links
• undo the effect of make install
• remove MiKTeX directories

Before you proceed, you should run initexmf --report in order to find the locations of the MiKTeX directories.

Run

initexmf --admin --force --remove-links

to remove the symbolic links created by initexmf --mklinks (see above).

There is an uninstall target which allows you to remove all files installed by make install (see above):

make uninstall

There are a couple of MiKTeX directories which have to be removed manually. For example:

rm -fr ~/.miktex
rm -fr /usr/local/share/miktex-texmf
rm -fr /var/cache/miktex-texmf
rm -fr /var/lib/miktex-texmf
rm -fr /var/log/miktex

Please inspect the output of initexmf --report in order to find out the exact locations.