[texhax] Throughput

[Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd)]

Peter Davis wrote:

> I expected this job to complete in a matter of minutes, but it basically
> took 100 times longer than I anticipated.  The job uses perhaps a dozen
> PDFs via \includegraphics, but it uses the sames ones over and over
> again.  It also uses  \textpos to position blocks of text arbitrarily on
> the page.
>
> Can anyone think of reasons why it might be so slow?

No, but as you have yourself suggested two possible causes,
would it not make sense to eliminate each in turn and see
what effect this has on performance ?  If it turns out
to be the \includgraphics then you might want to drop
down to whatever the XeTeX equivalent of PdfTeX's

	\pdfximage
	\pdfrefximage
	\pdflastximage

are, and see if this improves things.

Philip Taylor