I'm pasting here an answer that I posted somewhere else, because for a long while I relied on Joe's answer to get pdf-tools to work on my Mac. I don't exactly know why, everything stopped working a couple of months ago. After a lot of research, trial and error, I got to this.

I believe that the trick that really got everything running was setting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH to everything that mattered inside the init.el file (and downloading XQuartz to get a X11 environment, with the only purpose of having renderproto in the system; it may have been available in some other easier way, but it was only like this that I managed to do it).

Here are all the key steps involved in getting pdf-tools back to work in my MacOS Monterey 12.5 running Emacs 28.1 :-)

1. Download and install XQuartz to get X11 in your Mac (this might be unnecessary, but it helped me).

2. In case you haven't already, install other dependencies through homebrew:

     brew install poppler automake pkg-config
   

3. Through M-x list-packages, install pdf-tools.

4. In your init.el file, set the PKG_CONFIG_PATH using setenv:

     (setenv "PKG_CONFIG_PATH" "/usr/local/Cellar/zlib/1.2.12/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/X11/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/Cellar/poppler/22.06.0_1/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/x11/share/pkgconfig")
   

   Of course, you will have to use your own version numbers and update them every time you upgrade zlib and poppler.

5. Like Joe, I did all this through the use-package configuration macro that helps organize the init.el file:

     (use-package pdf-tools
      :ensure t
      :config
      (setenv "PKG_CONFIG_PATH" "/usr/local/Cellar/zlib/1.2.12/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/X11/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/Cellar/poppler/22.06.0_1/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/x11/share/pkgconfig")
      (pdf-tools-install)
      (custom-set-variables          
       '(pdf-tools-handle-upgrades t)))
   

6. Close and reopen the Emacs.app and, type y when prompted to "(re)build the epdfinfo program".

That's all it should take to get pdf-tools to work. It did it for me, anyway.

I'm pasting here an answer that I posted somewhere else (refer to that post, which unlike this one, I update regularly), because for a long while I relied on Joe's answer to get pdf-tools to work on my Mac. I don't exactly know why, everything stopped working a couple of months ago. After a lot of research, trial and error, I got to this.

I believe that the trick that really got everything running was setting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH to everything that mattered inside the init.el file (and downloading XQuartz to get a X11 environment, with the only purpose of having renderproto in the system; it may have been available in some other easier way, but it was only like this that I managed to do it).

Here are all the key steps involved in getting pdf-tools back to work in my MacOS Monterey 12.5 running Emacs 28.1 :-)

1. Download and install XQuartz to get X11 in your Mac (this might be unnecessary, but it helped me).

2. In case you haven't already, install other dependencies through homebrew:

     brew install poppler automake pkg-config
   

3. Through M-x list-packages, install pdf-tools.

4. In your init.el file, set the PKG_CONFIG_PATH using setenv:

     (setenv "PKG_CONFIG_PATH" "/usr/local/Cellar/zlib/1.2.12/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/X11/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/Cellar/poppler/22.06.0_1/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/x11/share/pkgconfig")
   

   Of course, you will have to use your own version numbers and update them every time you upgrade zlib and poppler.

5. Like Joe, I did all this through the use-package configuration macro that helps organize the init.el file:

     (use-package pdf-tools
      :ensure t
      :config
      (setenv "PKG_CONFIG_PATH" "/usr/local/Cellar/zlib/1.2.12/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/X11/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/Cellar/poppler/22.06.0_1/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/x11/share/pkgconfig")
      (pdf-tools-install)
      (custom-set-variables          
       '(pdf-tools-handle-upgrades t)))
   

6. Close and reopen the Emacs.app and, type y when prompted to "(re)build the epdfinfo program".

That's all it should take to get pdf-tools to work. It did it for me, anyway.

I'm pasting here an answer that I posted somewhere else, because for a long while I relied on Joe's answser to get pdf-tools to work on my Mac. I don't exactly know why, everyithing stopped working a couple of months ago. After a lot of research, trial and error, I got to this.

I believe that the trick that really got everyithing running was setting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH to everything that mattered inside the init.el file (and downloading XQuartz to get a X11 environment, with the only purpose of having renderproto in the system; it may have been available in some other easier way, but it was only like this that I managed to do it).

Here are all the key steps involved in getting pdf-tools back to work in my MacOS Monterey 12.5 running Emacs 28.1 :-)

1. Download and install XQuartz to get X11 in your Mac (this might be unnecessary, but it helped me).

2. In case you haven't already, install other dependencies through homebrew:

     brew install poppler automake pkg-config
   

3. Through M-x list-packages, install pdf-tools.

4. In your init.el file, set the PKG_CONFIG_PATH using setenv:

     (setenv "PKG_CONFIG_PATH" "/usr/local/Cellar/zlib/1.2.12/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/X11/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/Cellar/poppler/22.06.0_1/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/x11/share/pkgconfig")
   

   Of course, you will have to use your own version numbers and update them every time you upgrade zlib and poppler.

5. Like Joe, I did all this through the use-package configuration macro that helps organize the init.el file:

     (use-package pdf-tools
      :ensure t
      :config
      (setenv "PKG_CONFIG_PATH" "/usr/local/Cellar/zlib/1.2.12/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/X11/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/Cellar/poppler/22.06.0_1/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/x11/share/pkgconfig")
      (pdf-tools-install)
      (custom-set-variables          
       '(pdf-tools-handle-upgrades t)))
   

6. Close and reopen the Emacs.app and, type y when prompted to "(re)build the epdfinfo program".

That's all it should take to get pdf-tools to work. It did it for me, anyway.

I'm pasting here an answer that I posted somewhere else, because for a long while I relied on Joe's answer to get pdf-tools to work on my Mac. I don't exactly know why, everything stopped working a couple of months ago. After a lot of research, trial and error, I got to this.

I believe that the trick that really got everything running was setting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH to everything that mattered inside the init.el file (and downloading XQuartz to get a X11 environment, with the only purpose of having renderproto in the system; it may have been available in some other easier way, but it was only like this that I managed to do it).

Here are all the key steps involved in getting pdf-tools back to work in my MacOS Monterey 12.5 running Emacs 28.1 :-)

1. Download and install XQuartz to get X11 in your Mac (this might be unnecessary, but it helped me).

2. In case you haven't already, install other dependencies through homebrew:

     brew install poppler automake pkg-config
   

3. Through M-x list-packages, install pdf-tools.

4. In your init.el file, set the PKG_CONFIG_PATH using setenv:

     (setenv "PKG_CONFIG_PATH" "/usr/local/Cellar/zlib/1.2.12/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/X11/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/Cellar/poppler/22.06.0_1/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/x11/share/pkgconfig")
   

   Of course, you will have to use your own version numbers and update them every time you upgrade zlib and poppler.

5. Like Joe, I did all this through the use-package configuration macro that helps organize the init.el file:

     (use-package pdf-tools
      :ensure t
      :config
      (setenv "PKG_CONFIG_PATH" "/usr/local/Cellar/zlib/1.2.12/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/X11/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/Cellar/poppler/22.06.0_1/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/x11/share/pkgconfig")
      (pdf-tools-install)
      (custom-set-variables          
       '(pdf-tools-handle-upgrades t)))
   

6. Close and reopen the Emacs.app and, type y when prompted to "(re)build the epdfinfo program".

That's all it should take to get pdf-tools to work. It did it for me, anyway.