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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.

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    pdflatex knows the --draft option, which does not generate a .pdf output Commented Dec 27, 2014 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). Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 17:37
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    see tex.stackexchange.com/questions/15604/… Commented Dec 27, 2014 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 Commented Dec 27, 2014 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? Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 23:51

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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
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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. Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 20:44

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