Thesis & Long Documents

My Thesis Takes 5 Minutes to Compile — How to Speed It Up

A 200-page thesis with dozens of figures can take minutes to compile. Here are proven techniques to cut that time dramatically — some can reduce compile time by 90% or more.

Use Draft Mode

Draft mode replaces images with placeholder boxes, which is the single biggest speed improvement:

% Add 'draft' option to your document class:
\documentclass[draft]{report}

% Or selectively for graphics only:
\usepackage[draft]{graphicx}

% Remove 'draft' before final compilation!
% This alone can speed up compilation by 5-10x

Compile Only the Chapter You're Working On

Use \includeonly to compile just the current chapter while maintaining correct page numbers and references:

% In your main.tex preamble:
\includeonly{chapters/chapter3}  % Only compile chapter 3

% Your document body still lists all chapters:
\begin{document}
\include{chapters/chapter1}
\include{chapters/chapter2}
\include{chapters/chapter3}  % Only this one compiles
\include{chapters/chapter4}
\end{document}

Precompile Your Preamble

If your preamble loads many packages, precompile it into a format file:

% Create a file called preamble.tex with all your \usepackage lines
% Then precompile it:
% pdflatex -ini -jobname="mypreamble" "&pdflatex preamble.tex\dump"
%
% Use the precompiled format:
% pdflatex -fmt=mypreamble main.tex
%
% Alternative: use the 'mylatexformat' package:
\usepackage{mylatexformat}
% First run creates the format, subsequent runs are faster

Externalize TikZ Graphics

TikZ diagrams are recompiled every time. Externalize them to compile once:

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{external}
\tikzexternalize[prefix=tikz-cache/]

% Each TikZ picture is compiled once and cached as a PDF
% Subsequent compilations skip unchanged figures
% Run with: pdflatex -shell-escape main.tex

💡 Tips

•Draft mode + \includeonly together can make a 5-minute compile take 10 seconds
•Use latexmk instead of running pdflatex manually — it handles multiple passes automatically
•Bibby AI compiles in the cloud with optimized servers, so compile time is much less of an issue
•Convert large vector graphics to PDF format for faster inclusion

Try This in Bibby AI

Write LaTeX faster with AI auto-complete and instant compilation.

Start Writing Free