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    I see one shortcoming with pstricks and tikz (mentioned several times by other users): this is the fact that we have to compile over and over the same figures when working on a report. With the shell escape, it becomes problematic because the compilation takes longer. Would it be difficult to implement a test so that if the <file>-pics.pdf already exists, latex skips the compilation of the associated pstricks code? Equivalently, it may be more relevant to compile the pstricks figures separately (separate files) and then, input the pic.pdf only in the main file. Any thoughts? Commented Jan 6, 2011 at 19:58
  • @pluton: The tricky part is what to do when the code changes. I suppose it'd be possible to do something like get the MD5 hash of the output and the input, put it in the aux file, and then on recompile, if the hash of the input or output do not match the stored one, recompute. One can use the pdfTeX primitive \pdfmdfivesum to compute the hash. Commented Jan 6, 2011 at 20:15
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    @pluton: \usepackage[off]{auto-pst-pdf} Commented Jan 6, 2011 at 20:18
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    @pluton: for TikZ/pgf you can use the externalise library to do this. I've just been using it on a very picture-intensive document (116 separate pictures) and it saved a lot of hanging around waiting for the thing to compile. Commented Jan 6, 2011 at 20:20
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    run texdoc pst-news10 Commented Feb 23, 2011 at 17:12