MiKTeX and proTeXt ⇒ How to update Tex distribution

[Singularity]

According to this post, I need to update my Tex distribution. How do I do that?

I have MikTex. I ran "Update (Admin)" program a few times. But that has not solved the problem.

I also tried Package Manager (Admin), but was not sure what to do after starting it. I could not find anything named xfrac in it.

I have MikTex 2.9.

[cgnieder]

Does this question and its answers over a TeX stackexchange help?

How do I update my TeX distribution?

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi,

I have MikTex. I ran "Update (Admin)" program ... I could not find anything named xfrac in it.

MiKTeX 2.9 is already the latest base version. Running update sounds fine, as you did it.

However, xfrac is not a single package. It's part of the l3packages bundle, as you can see here: MiKTeX: l3packages: High-level LaTeX3 concepts.

So, ensure that l3packages is installed.

Stefan

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Here's the relevant part for MiKTeX updating, written by Harish Kumar under the link above (so cited with CC attribution). Btw. Harish Kumar is also member on LaTeX-Community.org.

MiKTeX GUI (Windows XP/Vista/7/8)

MiKTex can be updated with 2 methods. With method 1 only updates are possible – it's intended for this task –, method 2 uses the package manager, originally intended for manual package installations and uninstallations.

Otherwise than in TeXlive also binary files are updated if necessary. They are provided as additional packages with names starting with miktex-<name>-bin (and supporting packages with similar names).

Method 1

The update utility can be started from

start>All Programs>MiKTeX 2.9>Maintenance>Update.

This will open up a window like this:

miktex-update-1.png (54.63 KiB) Viewed 27678 times

Here, one can choose the package repositories and adjust connection settings. Pressing Next button will take you to the next window which will show, after a search through the repository for update-able packages (if any).

Here we can select the packages we want to update and click Next again:

miktex-update-2.png (108.67 KiB) Viewed 27678 times

Usually all packages are already selected. But sometimes, if an important internal MiKTeX binary has to be updated, this is selected alone and the update should separately be executed, first. Afterwards a second call of the update utility will select all other update-able packages.

This will start the downloading process and the update will be performed:

miktex-update-3.png (50.68 KiB) Viewed 27678 times

Method 2:

Alternatively, one can open MiKTeX package manager by

start>All Programs>MiKTeX 2.9>Maintenance>Package Manager.

When opened, it looks like this:

miktex-update-4.png (93.25 KiB) Viewed 27678 times

From here, one can choose the repository tab to change the repository and synchronize the packages with repository. After synchronizing, through Edit tab, we can perform Select All or Select Installable Packages or Select Updateable Packages. When this is done, the + or - buttons under the File menu get activated. By clicking + we can install updateable packages, while - button will remove the packages (Attention!).

Notes on admin mode

If you installed MiKTeX with Administrator privileges, you will have '(Admin)' versions of the above commands. To fully update your system, run the update both with and without the '(Admin)' mode enabled. This is necessary as with auto-install enabled, MiKTeX will have managed files both in the system-wide (Admin) area and your own user tree.

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Ulrike Fischer gave additional information here:

Synchronization

Miktex has an offline database which contains informations about available packages, their content and how to install them. Miktex needs such an offline database for the on-the-fly installation: Beside other problems it would slow down the compilation a lot if miktex would download the informations every time a file is missing.

When new packages are added to the online repositories, or if for some reason packages are rearranged or renamed the offline database on your PC is no longer up-to-date and you should "synchronize". As you can't know if this is the case you should use sensible rule of thumbs: Synchronize every month, if the update manager has removed some package, before running a lot of updates, if you are looking for a new package, if you get curious errors.

Updates

You should run regularly the update manager in admin + user mode to check for new packages. Before clicking on the "update" button, use your brain: updates do change the system and so can break it. Don't update when you don't have the time to handle problems. Don't update if packages are removed and you don't understand the implications. It doesn't do any harm to wait some days (I have miktex on three systems and their age differ by weeks).

FNDB + formats: In general it is not necessary to run the commands if you install packages with the package manager. But it can be necessary to run "updmap" as user to update your user map-files. If you install files manually you should always update the FNDB (in admin + user mode if you don't know which one is the right one), it doesn't harm to update the formats.

Critical Updates

Critical updates are updates which changes core miktex packages (those starting with miktex- in the list).

In some cases such updates also need some new packages, e.g. newer versions of some .dll or some new tool. The update manager will not show you the new packages. It will also not warn you that these packages are needed and should be installed.

When you see an update list that looks as if it could be critical, it is a good idea to first start the package manager ((admin) in multiuser setups), synchronize the data base (menu repositories), check if there are uninstalled miktex-packages and to install them.

If you forgot this and miktex fails after such an critical update: Don't panic. You normally can install the missing packages with the command line version of the tools, or even manually after a download from CTAN.


------

Stefan

[Singularity]

I tried running Update (Admin) again. It said there were no updates.

Then I went to Package Manager (Admin) and installed l3packages.

Then I went to Update (not admin). It said there were many packages to be updated. I checked off all of them, inlcuding l3packages.

For good measure, I went back to Update (Admin), now it had two packages to be updated.

Then I cycled through both Update (Admin), Update (non-admin) several times. The non-admin update always reports that l3kernel and l3packages need updating, no matter how many times I run it.

My MWE still reports 21 errors. Any more help?

MWE.log

(26.98 KiB) Downloaded 672 times

Code: Select all

\documentclass[14pt,fleqn,reqno]{extarticle}
\usepackage{amsfonts,amsmath,amssymb,amsthm}
\usepackage{bm,nicefrac,xfrac}

                                 
\begin{document}
\begin{align*}
  \bm{\nicefrac{1}{4}}
.\end{align*}
\end{document}

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Don't worry, often only the first error is relevant! Following errors could be a consequence.

In this case, it's not a package installation problem any more. You managed the installation fine. \bm doesn't work well with \nicefrac in its argument. I did not see the reason at first glance, however using \bm inside works fine:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[14pt,fleqn,reqno]{extarticle}
\usepackage{amsfonts,amsmath,amssymb,amsthm}
\usepackage{bm,nicefrac,xfrac}
\begin{document}
\begin{align*}
\nicefrac{\bm{1}}{\bm{4}}
\end{align*}
\end{document}

Stefan

[Johannes_B]

Feels a bit like moving in circles

[Stefan Kottwitz]

So it seems, that

• the installation problem of xfrac was solved here,
• the application of bold together with \frac commands has been solved in the other topic, or here.

Is this correct?

Btw. this seems to work too - not a single of them but the combination

Code: Select all

\boldmath{\mathbf{\nicefrac{1}{4}}}

Stefan

[Singularity]

Well, "solved" in the sense that I put \bm inside \nicefrac's arguments, yes. But I'd already figured that out. I'll mark this solved if you'd like.