[OS X TeX] Mulicores?

[Richard Koch]

Folks,

Let me chime in. I wrote a set of notes on group representations 440 pages long. The notes have many illustrationss. I don't use pdflatexmk, so I typeset once.

To time this, I go to the date and time at the right of the menu bar and select the Cupertino clock, which I leave up. I start typesetting when the second hand reaches 12 and look at the clock when typesetting ends to see how long it took. 

My notes typeset in 10 seconds. If I add the word "draft" to /documentclass, the typesetting time drops to 3 seconds. 

If you have a document of roughly this length which takes much longer to typeset, I suspect that you have very fancy illustrations. 

Why not adjust your typesetting method to the task at hand? If you are writing a section where illustrations don't matter, use pdflatex rather than pdflatexmk and use draft mode. If you are writing at a spot where illustrations are important, use pdflatex but remove draft mode. If you are working on indices and such, use pdflatexmk. I don't know if draft mode interferes with indices; if not, you can speed up the task by using draft mode at that point.

For fairly short documents, use your favorite engine, say pdflatexmk.  If you have a long manuscript, you can make the process less frustrating by adjusting  your typesetting engine to the task at hand at the moment.

Warning: I'm not a sophisticated user.

Dick Koch