GET READY · WINDOWS

Before you open LaTeXian,
prepare TeX Live.

LaTeXian provides the editor and local compile workflow. To create a real PDF, your PC must have TeX Live installed first. TeX Live supplies the LaTeX engines and packages that LaTeXian calls.

Prerequisite: install the full TeX Live distribution

A Basic or minimal install may miss packages. In the installer, choose the full scheme so the complete distribution is available.

1. Get the official installer

Use the TeX Users Group (TUG) Windows page to download the current installer. The network installer downloads the requested packages from an official mirror during setup.

Open the TUG Windows installation guide ↗ · Download install-tl-windows.exe ↗

2. Install the full distribution

Run install-tl-windows.exe. Allow the Windows permission prompt if it appears.
Open the Scheme or installation type setting and select full. Even when full is the default, verify the selection before starting.
Use an ASCII installation path when possible, such as C:\texlive\2026. The year changes with the TeX Live release.
Click Install and wait for the download and package setup to finish. A full installation needs a reliable internet connection and several gigabytes of free disk space.

The official TeX Live documentation describes scheme-full as the default scheme that includes everything and recommends it. See the install-tl documentation ↗ for advanced options.

3. Verify the installation

Open a new PowerShell window and run the commands below. If each engine prints a version, LaTeXian can use the local toolchain.

pdflatex --version
xelatex --version
lualatex --version
where.exe lualatex

✓ pdfLaTeXGeneral document builds

✓ XeLaTeXSystem fonts and multilingual documents

✓ LuaLaTeXLaTeXian's default engine

4. Compile in LaTeXian

Once TeX Live finishes installing, open LaTeXian. If it was open during setup, close and restart it.
Open a document in General, Math, or Tabular Editor and choose LuaLaTeX, XeLaTeX, or pdfLaTeX from the Engine control.
Press Compile. LaTeXian calls the local TeX engine and shows the result in the PDF preview.

If you see “engine not found”, run where.exe lualatex in PowerShell and restart LaTeXian. If it is still missing, check that TeX Live's Windows binary folder, for example C:\texlive\2026\bin\windows, is on PATH.

Troubleshooting

Package not found: confirm that the full scheme was installed, then update packages with TeX Live Manager.
Command not found: open a new PowerShell window so it reloads PATH, then restart LaTeXian.
Installation stopped: check the network connection and free disk space, then review the permissions and path notes in the TUG Windows guide.