Installing LaTeX

Zettlr uses Pandoc, a small program that can convert documents into other formats, for importing and exporting your files. Zettlr also features a built-in PDF exporter. However, if you are an advanced user or would like to customise your PDF exports further, you may want to install a LaTeX-distribution on your computer.

LaTeX is an advanced typesetting language that allows you to do more or less anything with your files. When you export a document to PDF using such a LaTeX distribution, you have many, many more options to customise your exported files than with the built-in exporter.

LaTeX distributions come in two flavors: A "full" installation featuring a host of graphical programs for writing TeX directly, and a "minimal" installation that only contains the actual compilers. Zettlr is happy with only a minimal installation (because it just needs the compiler), but if you want to fiddle around with LaTeX more you are free to also install the full package.

Windows

macOS

Linux

Linux distributions commonly have several LaTeX packages available to install directly from your software manager. There are also minimal and full packages. We list options for common distributions below.

It doesn't really matter which of the versions you install, but there is one requirement: You need to install the xetex binary, since that is the compiler that Zettlr uses. If in doubt, consult your distribution's manual for more information on how to correctly install TeX.

Debian/Ubuntu

The minimal setup with the XeLaTeX compiler:

$ sudo apt install texlive-base texlive-xetex

The full setup:

$ sudo apt install texlive-full

Fedora/RHEL

Fedora offers three distributions, basic, medium, and full. Install one of these:

$ sudo dnf install texlive-scheme-basic
$ sudo dnf install texlive-scheme-medium
$ sudo dnf install texlive-scheme-full

Flatpak

Install the texlive plugin for Flatpak (be warned, it is the full version and thus quite large):

$ flatpak install org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.texlive