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I tried for hours to use vimtex to compile a document that requires XeLaTeX. As the vimtex documentation says, the first line of my TeX document is %! TEX program = xelatex. However, I always get the following error:

/usr/local/texlive/2015/texmf-dist/tex/latex/fontspec/fontspec.sty|43 error| Fatal fontspec error: "cannot-use-pdftex"

So it look like PdfLaTeX is still used. Note that building a document that only requires PdfLaTeX work perfectly, and that the document I try to build with XeLaTeX is just a "Hello world" using a class that needs XeLaTeX and that compiles with xelatex file.txt command in a terminal.

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    can you try with: %!TEX TS-program = xelatex and %!TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode on two first lines?
    – koleygr
    Sep 19, 2017 at 23:10
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    I know you "tried for hours", but have you actually put the line in the document and restarted vim afterwards? This is what I did wrong.
    – red_trumpet
    Sep 21, 2017 at 9:56
  • In a sufficiently new version, you don't need to restart Vim or press \lx. Just restart the compiler. github.com/lervag/vimtex/issues/2168
    – user202729
    Sep 13, 2021 at 23:57

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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If you are using latexmk to compile and you use XeLaTeX for the most of the time, I suggest change the defaut engine for your latexmk, just add one line to you $HOME/.latexmkrc

$pdflatex="xelatex %O %S";

Or you might want to keep pdflatex as your latexmk option. I suggest changing the choice of vimtex: add these lines to your $HOME/.vimrc

let g:vimtex_compiler_latexmk = { 
        \ 'executable' : 'latexmk',
        \ 'options' : [ 
        \   '-xelatex',
        \   '-file-line-error',
        \   '-synctex=1',
        \   '-interaction=nonstopmode',
        \ ],
        \}

options here stands for the options of latexmk when you use \ll to compile in vim.

You can refer to the Official Document to see more customizations for latexmk.

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    Note that method (1) might affect some other tools other than vim, as it "changes the default engine for latexmk". (2) method 2 will not work in the current version, because vimtex generates the command-line argument to specify the engine to use, and that overrides the argument provided. Instead use a directive line in the file itself (and restart the compiler), or see plugin vimtex - xelatex as default latex engine - Vi and Vim Stack Exchange for setting the default setting.
    – user202729
    Sep 13, 2021 at 23:59
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The exclamation point is in the wrong place. It should be this: % !TEX program = xelatex with the exclamation point right before the TEX. Then write the file, reload vimtex with <leader>lx, and recompile and see if that works.

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    It work as well like I wrote it. All I had to do was restarting Vim.
    – Nakrule
    Jul 17, 2019 at 6:46

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