[XeTeX] little question

[Jonathan Kew]

On 13 Sep 2007, at 10:08 am, jadolov k wrote:

> Hi to everybody
> I have just a little (may be, rhetorical) question: why is xetex so  
> slow (compared to latex etc)? Especially when I use the SmallCaps  
> feature via fontspec. pdfLaTeX compiles a 100 pages document in a  
> second, while for my xetex installation it takes a second for every  
> page...

I don't know why using the SmallCaps feature should make a  
significant difference; does this apply to all fonts, or is it  
related to a particular one?

Which platform are you using? If you're on Mac OS X, you can probably  
get a major speed-up by running xetex with the xdvipdfmx output  
driver instead of the default xdv2pdf. To do that, use the -output- 
driver option, from the command line or via a TeXShop engine or other  
script (depending on your working environment); details have been  
discussed on the list in the past.

(If you're on another platform, this isn't a factor as there's only  
the one driver available.)

While xetex is often a bit slower than pdftex, the difference  
shouldn't normally be anywhere near what you describe, so I'm  
wondering if something is odd about your installation. Could you  
provide a .log file so we can see what packages, etc., are being  
used? Do you have a reasonably portable test document (not relying on  
lots of proprietary fonts, etc, and obviously not confidential!) that  
you could share, so I could try it here for comparison?

JK