As many Mac users know, starting with Mac OS X 10.15 (Catalina), Apple has decided to no longer support any 32-bit apps.  Every app must be 64-bit.  Apparently, starting with version 10.15.4, they are enforcing this so that if you try and run a 32-bit app, it gives a “Bad CPU” message.

If you are using Catalina, you also will need to do some special steps to get the XMLmind XML Editor (that XLingPaper depends on) to run correctly.  See this post for what to do.

Most of the apps that XLingPaper uses are 64-bit, but there is one crucial one that is not.  This one is used when producing PDF (the default, XeLaTeX way).  At this time, we are not planning on doing the massive amount of work that would be required to switch to a 64-bit version of XeLaTeX and the LaTeX macros XLingPaper needs in such a way that we do not introduce bugs.  Our experiments have shown that using one 64-bit Mac version and its associated (newer) LaTeX macros often results in different PDF output or maybe even a failure to produce the PDF compared to the current 32-bit XeLaTeX and its associated LaTeX macros.  Given the huge number of possible combinations of elements XLingPaper offers, such a process to check as many such combinations as possible is a large and time-consuming undertaking.

So what can you do if you find you have or need Catalina?  Here are some possibilities:

  1. Sign a petition asking Apple to support 32-bit apps on Catalina.
  2. Create what’s called a virtual machine on your Mac and install an older version of Mac OS X in that virtual machine.  Then run XLingPaper in that virtual machine.  See this YouTube video for how you might do this.
  3. If you already  have FieldWorks Language Explorer (aka FLEx) installed in a Windows (or Linux) virtual machine, then download and install the Windows (or Linux) version of XLingPaper and use XLingPaper on that virtual machine.
  4. Create a virtual machine for Windows or Linux and then download and install the Windows or Linux version of XLingPaper on it.  See this article for possible virtual machines to use.