No TeX installation detected when trying to render pdf

[cderv]

Discussed in #2406

^{Originally posted by ericvmai September 12, 2022}
I keep trying to render a quarto html and pdf but rstudio tells me: No TeX installation was detected.

But when I enter quarto install tool tinytex then it says it is already installed. When I try to produce a pdf of a different project - I can produce a PDF with no issue. Help!

https://github.com/hdadvisors/chesterfield-market-analysis/tree/quarto-transition

[cderv]

@ericvmai We keep getting some report about similar issues. Can you give us more information :

• Share quarto check output
• Share quarto tools info tinytex output
• How did you installed TeX on your system ?
• Which OS are you on ? What is the result of which tlmgr if you are on LINUX or Get-Command tlmgr in powershell on Windows ? More generally do you have tlmgr found in PATH ?

Thank you.

[ericvmai]

quarto check output:

[>] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[>] Checking Python 3 installation....(None)

  Unable to locate an installed version of Python 3.
  Install Python 3 from https://www.python.org/downloads/

[>] Checking R installation...........OK
Version: 4.1.2
Path: C:/PROGRA1/R/R-411.2
LibPaths:
- C:/Users/ericv/Documents/R/win-library/4.1
- C:/Program Files/R/R-4.1.2/library
rmarkdown: 2.16

[>] Checking Knitr engine render......OK

quart tools info tinytex output:

{
"name": "TinyTeX",
"installed": true,
"version": "v2022.09",
"directory": "C:\Users\ericv\AppData\Roaming\TinyTeX",
"bin-directory": "C:\Users\ericv\AppData\Roaming\TinyTeX\bin\win32",
"configuration": {
"status": "warning",
"message": "TeX Live not on path."
}
}

TeX was installed utilizing Yihui's instructions on: https://yihui.org/tinytex/

I'm on Windows OS 11 Pro. Not sure about tlmgr.

[cderv]

"message": "TeX Live not on path."

This is probably the issue.

Can you open

• powershell terminal and do (Get-Command tlmgr).Source
• or CMD if you prefer and type where tlmgr

This is to check if this is found in terminal. I think it will not be found.

@dragonstyle this seems to be another case where

• Quarto finds TinyTeX with quarto tools
• But it is not on PATH somehow, so it is not found during rendering.

[ericvmai]

"message": "TeX Live not on path."

This is probably the issue.

Can you open

• powershell terminal and do (Get-Command tlmgr).Source
• or CMD if you prefer and type where tlmgr

This is to check if this is found in terminal. I think it will not be found.

@dragonstyle this seems to be another case where

• Quarto finds TinyTeX with quarto tools
• But it is not on PATH somehow, so it is not found during rendering.

Get-Command : The term 'tlmgr' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program.
Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:2

• (Get-Command tlmgr).Source

•  + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (tlmgr:String) [Get-Command], CommandNotFoundException
   + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetCommandCommand
  

[cderv]

Yes so the issue is that for some reason, Installation was not complet and tlmgr has not be added to PATH.

This leads to Quarto not finding it. Is this possible to uninstall TinyTeX and reinstall using quarto install tool tinytex ?

Installation should call tlmgr path add to correctly put the binary into the PATH. (note that on Windows, you may need to restart Terminal or even computer for this to work after installation)

[ericvmai]

What method do you suggest for uninstalling TinyTeX?

[cderv]

if you used tinytex::install_tinytex(), you can do tinytex::uninstall_tinytex().

[nzgwynn]

I'm teaching beginner students (their first R class) and they are having the same issue. What is the best way to help them debug?

[cderv]

they are having the same issue

You mean the no TeX installation detected ?

We are currently working on improving all this in Quarto so that when TinyTeX is found, it will be used.

Currently, Quarto assumes that TeX Live is available by looking at tlmgr on PATH - So it must be on PATH.

To debug:

• Which TeX Live installation are they running ? If none they install, it could be good to use the TinyTeX one quarto tools install tinytex
• If still not working after this installation, add on PATH tlmgr - usually tlmgr path add is the solution, but it should have been run by the installer.
• Uninstalling and reinstalling TinyTeX is an option as it seems that solved the issue for @ericvmai above.
• Adding manually on PATH the bin directory where tlmgr is should be possible too.

So basically, the thing is for now tlmgr should be found on PATH. For later version of Quarto, it will be improved and hopefully this will never happen again

Hope it helps

[nzgwynn]

We've uninstalled and reinstalled a few times using quarto install tool tinytex which didn't help.

You're saying in the console run

tinytex::uninstall_tinytex()
tinytex::install_tinytex() 

Is the best next step?

[cderv]

How was TinyTeX installed in the first place ? Using the tinytex R package ?
If so, then yes you can try this step. tlmgr path add should be run by default as part of the installation steps.

You can still try to run it yourself. For R users managing with R package:

• tinytex::tinytex_root() should return where the installation took place
• tinytex::is_tinytex() will confirm that it is a tinytex
• tinytex::tlmgr_path("add") should run the command to add in PATH.

Not that going to tinytex::tinytex_root() folder, you can find the tlmgr binary and then run the command from terminal there too

tlmgr path add

I am sorry this looks so complex. I am trying to give as much information as I can to help without seeing the real environment and trying to see the real issues.

[AmeliaMN]

Count me among the people whose students are having issues with this! I would estimate about 50% of my students were able to get a TeX installation that Quarto could detect using tinytex::install_tinytex() but the other 50% needed to do the quarto install tool tinytex after the fact. At the terminal when running that command they usually got a message about already having TeX installed, but I had them Y to reinstall. I assume this just fixed whatever the path stuff was a little mis-specified before, because then everything worked!

[nzgwynn]

I found a work around @AmeliaMN! Have them render an HTML, you can open the HTML in a website and save it as a pdf! They can open in Chrome and hit print and to save to a pdf!

[cderv]

We have added better detection process for the TinyTeX installation, installed by Quarto or by R with tinytex

This currently lives in the pre release for 1.2 that can be downloaded at https://quarto.org/docs/download/

Changes are:

• If a TinyTeX installation is found, it will be used by Quarto even if not in PATH.
• quarto tools install tinytex won't put in PATH by default to avoid problem with other installation. The former point insure TinyTeX will be used.
• Other changelog at https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/blob/main/news/changelog-1.2.md#tinytex

Please do give a try to the pre-release if you still encounter issue with some installation.

Thank you everyone for your feedback. This helped us improve !

[gshotwell]

I ran into this issue and it turned out that my /usr/local/bin was not writable. This old tinytex issue resolved it for me.

rstudio/tinytex#24

[joundso]

I ran into this issue while trying to install quarto and tex into the rstudio image: Dockerfile.

quarto check says:

[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.2.335
      Path: /usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.10.6
      Path: /usr/bin/python3
      Jupyter: (None)

      Jupyter is not available in this Python installation.
      Install with python3 -m pip install jupyter

ERROR: PermissionDenied: Permission denied (os error 13), stat '/root/pyvenv.cfg'

Do I need python/pip/jupyter for compiling quarto documents with only R chunks?
The error if I hit the "Render project" button in RStudio is:

running xelatex - 1
command xelatex not found, attempting install
finding package for xelatex
ERROR: Error executing '/home/rstudio/.TinyTeX/bin/x86_64-linux/tlmgr': No such file or directory (os error 2)

Exited with status 1.

Any hints?

[cderv]

Do I need python/pip/jupyter for compiling quarto documents with only R chunks?

No you don't need Python / Jupyter is you don't need document with Python.

The error if I hit the "Render project" button in RStudio is:

It seems you have a valid installation of LaTeX - See https://quarto.org/docs/output-formats/pdf-engine.html#installing-tex

Version: 1.2.335

Please do update to 1.3 Release Candidate available at https://quarto.org/docs/download/ - it should have some fix toward better error message I believe.

[memeplex]

Share quarto tools info tinytex output

@cderv This was an useful tip given that I was struggling to find the location of tinytex. But FYI it's not documented quarto tools --help.

[mcanouil]

@memeplex are you using the version of Quarto from last year? Be cautious of the date/version.
The posts mentioned 1.2 (stable) and a 1.3 pre-release. The original post where you found the command is even from 1.1. We are at 1.4 (stable).

[memeplex]

1.4.549. It was just a heads up.

[cderv]

But FYI it's not documented quarto tools --help.

Yes we know. quarto CLI help needs some improvements, especially on some specific commands like this. Thanks for the heads up.