Precompiled preamble w/ tikz.

[Alex Ross-7]

I like to put all my package includes into a preamble file, and then  
preprocess it to produce a .fmt file.  The provides a good speed up  
when compiling latex documents because the disk doesn't have to do a  
lot of random accesses while loading packages. TikZ loads a *lot* of  
files, so it would be nice to use the same approach when creating a  
TikZ picture.

However, the TikZ packages do not seem to like being precompiled.  My  
pictures turn out with all of the node labels drawn on the same point,  
and none of the paths drawn at all.  I suppose there is some TikZ  
routine that is run when the package is loaded, that does not get run  
when the preamble is precompiled.

Is there anything that can be done?

—Alex Ross
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[Alex Ross-7]

On Oct 22, 2008, at 2:57 PM, Alex Ross wrote:

> Is there anything that can be done?


The problem that I had was due to pdflatex assuming dvi output when in  
-ini mode.  It can be remedied by specifying -output-format=pdf when  
compiling a preamble fie.

—Alex


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[Till Tantau-3]

Hi!

have you actually succeeded in creating the format file? In the past  
people have failed to do so while, theoretically, it should have been  
possible. So, in case you really succeeded it would be nice (for me)  
to know.

Best regards,
Till

Am 23.10.2008 um 18:21 schrieb Alex Ross:

> On Oct 22, 2008, at 2:57 PM, Alex Ross wrote:
>
>> Is there anything that can be done?
>
>
> The problem that I had was due to pdflatex assuming dvi output when in
> -ini mode.  It can be remedied by specifying -output-format=pdf when
> compiling a preamble fie.
>
> —Alex
>
>
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--
Prof. Dr. Till Tantau <tantau@...>
http://www.tcs.uni-luebeck.de


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[Berteun Damman]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 12:16 PM, Till Tantau <tantau@...> wrote:
> have you actually succeeded in creating the format file? In the past
> people have failed to do so while, theoretically, it should have been
> possible. So, in case you really succeeded it would be nice (for me)
> to know.

Having read this message, I thought it would be a good idea to try it,
because the compile times of my thesis became longer and longer as I
added more packages, more figures, et cetera. ;)

I have created a small file preamble.tex which includes the
usepackages (including TikZ) and generated the format file with:

pdflatex -ini -jobname="thesis" -output-format=pdf "&latex preamble.tex\dump"

and replaced the whole preamble simply by %&thesis. This appears to
work fine. In my case the biggest time saver however was using the new
'external' library of TikZ 2.0-CVS. Combining these two cut down
compilation time of the whole document from 30 seconds to 5 seconds.
The format file 'only' gave 2 seconds though.

So in short, it works for me with PGF CVS-2.00 and TeXLive 2008 (and I
might add externalisation is really easy with the new library).

Berteun

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[Berteun Damman]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 3:20 PM, Alex Ross <alex@...> wrote:
> Those two seconds are really nice for shorter compiles… I usually prototype
> my pictures in a seperate file and it's quite nice having a faster
> turn-around.
That's certainly true, actually, I do the same. ;)

> Wow, externalization is cool!  Any ideas when the external library will
> appear in TeXLive?

No, but till that happens you can look at Kjell Magne Fauske's
excellent page which has the latest CVS builds:
http://www.texample.net/tikz/builds/

The new manual (which you can download there too) already describes
the usage of the external library. It's quite easy to install this
build locally in your TEXMFHOME (for details:
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=privinst)

For me the recent CVS builds have worked rather well. There was only
one catch when externalising the figures: if you use matrices, it
seems you always have to provide an ampersand replacement, because
otherwise the externalisation fails with an 'invalid catcode for &'
message, even if your document compiles fine when not externalising.

Berteun
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[Mariano Suárez-Alvarez]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Berteun Damman <berteun@...> wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 12:16 PM, Till Tantau <tantau@...> wrote:
>> have you actually succeeded in creating the format file? In the past
>> people have failed to do so while, theoretically, it should have been
>> possible. So, in case you really succeeded it would be nice (for me)
>> to know.
>
> Having read this message, I thought it would be a good idea to try it,
> because the compile times of my thesis became longer and longer as I
> added more packages, more figures, et cetera. ;)
>
> I have created a small file preamble.tex which includes the
> usepackages (including TikZ) and generated the format file with:
>
> pdflatex -ini -jobname="thesis" -output-format=pdf "&latex preamble.tex\dump"
>
> and replaced the whole preamble simply by %&thesis. This appears to
> work fine. In my case the biggest time saver however was using the new
> 'external' library of TikZ 2.0-CVS. Combining these two cut down
> compilation time of the whole document from 30 seconds to 5 seconds.
> The format file 'only' gave 2 seconds though.

I use the mylatex.ltx "package" instead, which has the nice advantage that
people who do not know anything about creating formats can use the file
in the usual way.

You can find the mylatex.ltx file in a TeXLive installation and, of course,
in CTAN. The very short documentation is in the .tx file itself, IIRC.

-- m


--
Mariano Suárez-Alvarez
http://mate.dm.uba.ar/~aldoc9
http://www.gnome.org/~mariano
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[Christophe Jorssen-2]

Till Tantau a écrit :
> Hi!
>
> have you actually succeeded in creating the format file? In the past  
> people have failed to do so while, theoretically, it should have been  
> possible. So, in case you really succeeded it would be nice (for me)  
> to know.

I often use preview in auctex (with emacs) with the cache preamble
option. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work... Removing the
cache preamble option makes it work again.

Sorry, but I cannot identify why it doesn't work sometimes :-(

Note: preview uses mylatex.ltx

--
Christophe

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