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On Windows 7 64-bit I am using TeXLive 2016. I have the complete package installed and in order to use system fonts I switched from pdfTeX to XeTeX. It occurred to me that XeTeX ran much slower than its counterpart and the test in the Windows PowerShell confirmed this observation. For the same file with all the auxiliary files deleted XeTeX takes 47 second to run, whereas pdfTeX takes 9 seconds.

I read on this site that running fc-cache -fv in the administrator command prompt should help, yet this did not make the situation better. I know that it is acceptable to have a difference of %50 percent maybe, but the time it takes is nearly 5 times. What might be the reason behind this?

PS: The source file has a size of around ~1600 lines when flattened. The PDF output is 112-113 pages. The power shell output is below:

PS D:\Dropbox\Work\ThesisTeXSource> Measure-Command {pdflatex.exe -synctex=1 -shell-escape -interaction=nonstopmode .\On
gunArisevMSc.tex}
system returned with code 1


Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 9
Milliseconds      : 97
Ticks             : 90973370
TotalDays         : 0.000105293252314815
TotalHours        : 0.00252703805555556
TotalMinutes      : 0.151622283333333
TotalSeconds      : 9.097337
TotalMilliseconds : 9097.337



PS D:\Dropbox\Work\ThesisTeXSource> Measure-Command {xelatex.exe -synctex=1 -shell-escape -interaction=nonstopmode .\Ong
unArisevMSc.tex}
system returned with code 1


Days              : 0
Hours             : 0
Minutes           : 0
Seconds           : 47
Milliseconds      : 699
Ticks             : 476994194
TotalDays         : 0.000552076613425926
TotalHours        : 0.0132498387222222
TotalMinutes      : 0.794990323333333
TotalSeconds      : 47.6994194
TotalMilliseconds : 47699.4194



PS D:\Dropbox\Work\ThesisTeXSource>
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  • Did you run this test once or is it representative? – TeXnician May 9 '17 at 14:49
  • @TeXnician I ran it more than once, it is similar every time. The compilation chain is pdflatex -> biber -> makeindex -> pdflatex -> pdflatex OR XeTex – Vesnog May 9 '17 at 14:53
  • Possible duplicate of Why XeLaTeX is slower than pdflatex? – TeXnician May 9 '17 at 14:55
  • @TeXnician So, might this be related with xdvipdfmx driver and totally normal behaviour? – Vesnog May 9 '17 at 14:58
  • 1
    @Vesnog Yes, because effectively it produces an intermediate format (DVI) and this is converted to PDF instead of pdflatex which omits the intermediate stage. – TeXnician May 9 '17 at 15:06

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