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Is there any way to run LaTeX without it trying to produce output, only producing an .aux file with section, equation, table, figure, references, etcetera. I understand it obviously can't produce page references.

I know about the virtues of \includeonly, externalization, etcetera; I'm not asking about anything other than the question above.

doncherry
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JPi
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    pdflatex knows the --draft option, which does not generate a .pdf output –  Dec 27 '14 at 17:29
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    You can also add \pdfdraftmode=1 to the document (which does the same as the command line option). – Ulrike Fischer Dec 27 '14 at 17:37
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    see http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/15604/how-to-speed-up-pdflatex-for-a-very-large-document-on-macos-x/15607#15607 –  Dec 27 '14 at 18:56
  • Thank you very much. This is actually not quite what I had in mind since it still appears to go through much of the processing and saves only about 30% off the compile time – JPi Dec 27 '14 at 20:45
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    @JPi Producing the .aux file requires typesetting the document anyway: how can the page numbers be found, otherwise? – egreg Dec 27 '14 at 23:51
  • I won't be referencing any pages or producing an index or table of contents so it doesn't matter to me whether or not the page numbers can be found. From the feedback I'm getting here it sounds like it won't be easy. – JPi Dec 27 '14 at 23:56

1 Answers1

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You can use the draft mode:

-draftmode
          Sets \pdfdraftmode so pdfTeX doesn't write a PDF and 
          doesn't read any included images, thus speeding up execution.

Arara also supports it, here's an example for TeXworks: 

% arara: pdflatex: { draft : yes }

I use the following snippet to compile a large document with hundreds of pages and references:

%!TEX TS-program = Arara
% arara: pdflatex: { draft : yes }
% arara: pdflatex: { draft : yes }
% arara: biber
% arara: pdflatex
% arara: pdflatex
Uwe Ziegenhagen
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  • Thank you very much. This is actually not quite what I had in mind since it still appears to go through much of the processing and saves only about 30% off the compile time. – JPi Dec 27 '14 at 20:44