I recently got a new laptop with Windows 11. Producing the PDF (via XeLaTeX) always took a long time, even on a small document. Remember that we note that XeLaTeX takes longer to run the first time you run it on a new computer and whenever you add or remove fonts on your system. In this case, however, XeLaTeX always took a long time.

It turns out that I needed to invoke the XMLmind XML Editor using the “Run as administrator” option. Once I did that, XeLaTeX was able to update its information on fonts the first time. From then on, it produced the PDF quickly.

So if you run into this situation on Windows 11, try this:

  1. Right-click on the XMLmind XML Editor desktop icon.
  2. Choose “Run as administrator”
  3. Produce the PDF. This should take a while.
  4. Produce the PDF again. This time it should run much faster.

From then on, you will only need to do this whenever you add or remove fonts.