Re: suggestion to change default org-latex-pdf-process to latexmk

[Tim Cross]

Stefan Nobis <stefan-ml@snobis.de> writes:

> Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> One reason is that latexmk is not installed on some systems.
>
> Just after starting to write that this is false nowadays I realized
> you are right. :)
>
> See: https://mg.readthedocs.io/latexmk.html
>
> For macOS latexmk is distributed with the default TeX installation
> MacTeX for quite some years (IIRC at least since 2012). And it is
> working OOTB.
>
> As far as I know the default TeX installation for Windows is MikTeX
> (is this still true?), which also includes latexmk but lacks the Perl
> part (therefore Perl needs to be installed manually). But there is
> TeXLive for Windows and as far as I understand in this case Perl is
> also installed and latexmk works OOTB.
>
> A manual installation of TeXLive for Linux should also install latexmk
> (and Perl should also be available on next to every Linux box). Only
> some distributions bundle latexmk in a separate package - that should
> be easy to install (but breaks PDF creation if forgotten).
>
> Therefore: latexmk is available on all plattforms and in most cases it
> is already installed with the TeX system or easily installable. But
> not in all cases does it work OOTB and requires more work like
> installing Perl on Windows.
>
> In my opinion its worth to depend on this tool as it makes handling
> LaTeX documents much easier. On the other hand it may raise the bar
> for some users just to high. Hard to say.
>
> An alternative may be to use latexmk only if citations are found (new
> feature, new dependencies). Or a wrapper that checks whether latexmk
> is available and works (e.g. trying to call "latexmk --version") and
> falls back to the old routine of manually running the engine and
> bibtex/biber if necessary.

The more I think about it, I think the best solution would be to update
the code which sets the default and have it check for latexmk. If it is
found, set it as the default and if it is not found, set the existing
default. This would have minimum impact on users and allow those who
have installed latexmk to get the benefits while not forcing those who
don't need it to install it.


-- 
Tim Cross