TexLive

According to Wikipedia:

TeX Live is a free software distribution for the TeX typesetting system that includes major TeX-related programs, macro packages, and fonts.

Installation

Since TeX Live consist of thousands of packages, to make managing it easier, NixOS replicates the organization of TeX Live into 'schemes' and 'collections'

The following Tex Live schemes are available, inspect texlive.schemes for full list:

Name of TeX Live package	Name of NixOS-derivation	Comment
Scheme-full	nixpkgs.texliveFull	Contains every TeX Live package
Scheme-medium	nixpkgs.texliveMedium	contains everything in the small scheme + more packages and languages
Scheme-small	nixpkgs.texliveSmall	contains everything in the basic scheme + xetex, metapost, a few languages.
Scheme-basic	nixpkgs.texliveBasic	contains everything in the plain scheme but includes latex.
Scheme-minimal	nixpkgs.texliveMinimal	contains plain only.
Scheme-teTeX	nixpkgs.texliveTeTex	contains more than the medium scheme, but nowhere near the full scheme.
Scheme-ConTeXt	nixpkgs.texliveConTeXt	contains ConTeXt
Scheme-GUST	nixpkgs.texliveGUST	contains gust

Combine Sets

You can install a set with extra packages by using something like

(texliveMedium.withPackages (ps: with ps;[xifthen ifmtarg framed paralist titlesec]))

For a minimal set of packages needed for Emacs Orgmode, as described in org-latex-default-packages-alist variable, install these packages:

{ config, pkgs, ... }:
let
  tex = (pkgs.texliveBasic.withPackages (
    ps: with ps; [
      dvisvgm dvipng # for preview and export as html
      wrapfig amsmath ulem hyperref capt-of
      #(setq org-latex-compiler "lualatex")
      #(setq org-preview-latex-default-process 'dvisvgm)
  ]));
in
{ # home-manager
  home.packages = with pkgs; [
    tex
  ];
}

Adding a Custom Package

If you have a custom LaTeX package or style file that is not part of the TeXLive distribution, you can add it to the package set like this:

First, create a derivation for your package. The contents of $out/tex will later be placed in texmf/tex

latex-corporate-identity = pkgs.stdenvNoCC.mkDerivation {
  name = "latex-corporate-identity";
  src = ./path/to/package/tree;
  installPhase = "cp -r $src $out";
  passthru.tlType = "run";
};


texlive-corporate-identity = {
  pkgs = [ latex-corporate-identity ];
};

The directory tree under the path specified as src looks like this:

└── tex
    └── latex
        └── corporate-identity
            ├── corporate-identity.sty

You can now add the package to the combined set as you would with any other texlive package:

tex =(pkgs.texlive.withPackages (
   ps: with ps; [
     texlive-corporate-identity
 ]));

Troubleshooting

Missing lmodern.sty

If LaTex (perhaps through Pandoc) complains about missing lmodern.sty, make sure you have at least texlive.combined.scheme-medium installed (-full should work as well; while -small worked for some, but not for all).

Invalid fontname ‘Latin Modern Roman/ICU’

If you get an error message saying “Invalid fontname ‘Latin Modern Roman/ICU’. . . ”, then you need to add the entry lmodern into your configuration in the section fonts.fonts and rebuild.

Further reading

• The Tex Live Guide 2018
• Tex in NixOS-Wiki
• Building LaTeX Documents Reproducibly with Nix Flakes