It looks like you're encountering an issue related to exporting Jupyter notebooks to PDF using nbconvert on your Mac M1. The error mentions a missing installation of xelatex (part of TeX), but you’ve already installed MacTeX and added it to the PATH. Here are a few steps you can take to troubleshoot further:

1. Verify TeX Installation: Ensure that xelatex is properly installed and available in your terminal. Run the following command:

which xelatex

This should return the path to xelatex. If it doesn't, TeX may not be properly installed, even if MacTeX is on the path.

2. Recheck Your PATH Configuration: Double-check that your path export is in the correct place. You can verify that the correct TeX path is loaded by running:

echo $PATH

The path /Library/TeX/texbin should appear in the output. If it doesn't, add the export command to your shell's profile file (~/.zshrc or ~/.bash_profile, depending on your shell).

3. Ensure nbconvert is Installed with LaTeX Support: It may help to make sure that nbconvert has the LaTeX dependencies correctly installed. Run:

pip install nbconvert[all]

This ensures all optional dependencies, including LaTeX, are included.

4. Check Jupyter Extension: The error also indicates the issue might stem from the VS Code Jupyter extension. You can try:

Restarting VS Code.

Checking for updates to the Jupyter extension.

Ensuring that the Python environment selected in VS Code is the same one where nbconvert and TeX are installed.

5. Exporting to PDF Manually: As a workaround, try using the command line to export the notebook to PDF. Open a terminal and run:

jupyter nbconvert --to pdf your_notebook.ipynb

This might provide more detailed error messages that can guide further troubleshooting.

6. Using HTML as an Alternative: If the PDF export remains problematic, try exporting the notebook to HTML and then using your browser’s “Print to PDF” feature as a temporary workaround:

jupyter nbconvert --to html your_notebook.ipynb