Texmaker and TeXstudio ⇒ Slow Compilation and Freeze

[DavidH]

Hi,

I'm using MikTeX 2.9, TeXMaker 3.3.4 (May 2012) and compiling with PdfLatex.
I have several problems with the speed of certain actions when writing in TeXMaker. Firstly, it takes one and a half minute (90 secs) to compile my document (80 pages, and several images, eps to pdf), and even compiling small documents also takes forever. This is estremely annoying and takes all my time.
I also have problems with simples things such as opening .tex files and writing arguments to commands (e.g. \section{argument}). Opening files takes quite a long time, and writing indside the paranthesis of any command makes TeXMaker freeze, and take several minutes to even just display the text which I've typed. Commenting command lines and then type in the argument works though, however, it also takes quite a while just placing the '%' in front of the command.

I've attached the .log-file from compiling my document.

Any suggestions on how to speed things up!?

[localghost]

A log file without the producing source code is almost useless. Furthermore your problems seem to be more technical. Hence you should contact the developers of TeXmaker.


Thorsten

[DavidH]

By producing source code, do you then mean my preamble?

[localghost]

By producing source code, do you then mean my preamble?

Is a log file produced by only a preamble? An appropriate source would be a proper minimal example. In your case this could be difficult. I'd suggest that you build the smallest possible document to test if TeXmaker still works slowly and to look at the compilation speed. Compile as well on the command line and compare. Sometimes a restart either of the software or of the operating system can help.

[tafi]

I also experience speed issues with Texmaker on a regular basis. Others have experinced this as well but reporting of it seems to be very intermittent. A couple of hours work on a multi-file document (thesis) is all it takes for texmaker to become very sluggish in responding to simple things like scrolling, typing, copying and pasting, switching files etc. All the usual things one wants to do with a document. I might be oversimplifying the issue but really, for a glorified text editor, Texmaker really is very slow.

However, at the moment I am stuck with it (at least until I submit - in two weeks) becasue it is free, and provides decent suport for unicode, all flavours of latex, latexmk AND biblatex. I have yet to find another editor (free or otherwise) which can do all this without having to make user modifications or kludges.

We should be careful in separating the slowness of the opperation of Texmaker from any slow compilation. In my experience, the editor has very little influence on compilation speed, and it is more likely to be a compiler isssue (if it is an issue at all). By the same token a MWE and logfile MIGHT help diagnose slow compilation issues, but it will be useles in diagnosing problems with the editor.

To give the backgroudn to my situation:

I run Texmaker on Win XP with Miktex 2.9.

For my thesis I use xelatex, run from a latexmk command. This is extremely slow to compile, and the output file is too large for my liking. However from what I understnad xelatex is ususally a lot slower (someone shuould correct me on this if I am wrong). I use xelatex becasue I like the look of the fonts I'm using and unicode is handy to me.

However, because most publishing houses are backward (Elsevier that means you!), I need to write papers using plain latex. Using this mode of compilation is lightning fast compared to xelatex for the same sized document (~10 pages 2 column with figures).

[tafi]

For what it is worth, some people have found a way to speed up TeXmaker (for me this does not yield massive gains but it might work for you):

1. Go to options -> Configure TeXmaker,
2. Select the "Editor" pane,
3. UN-check the box marked "Check for external changes".

The only benefit, I have found, to having TeXmaker check for external changes, is that it keeps track of the changes you might make to your bib file(s). In this way TeXmaker has an up-to-date list of citation keys for auto-completion. In the process this can absorb a lot of system resources (so I have been told).

If you need to update the keys list the best thing to do is to click "Edit -> Refresh Bibliography" whenever you make a change to the bibliography.