Fix a LaTeX compile timeout.
An online compiler stops a job that runs past its limit: 10 seconds on Overleaf's free plan, 30 seconds on Texeno's, 8 minutes on Texeno's paid plans. A few slow steps cause most timeouts, and each can be cut.
Find what is slow
Compile time comes from three places: figures that are drawn again on every run, such as TikZ and PGFPlots, extra passes for the bibliography and index, and large images. Page count matters less than people expect. A 200-page text with few figures builds faster than a 20-page paper with 40 plots.
Before anything else, try Recompile from scratch. A damaged cache can make a build loop until the limit, and clearing cached files removes that cause in one step.
Six fixes
Cache TikZ and PGFPlots figures
Each figure is compiled once and reused until it changes. It needs shell commands, which run on every Texeno plan, and Texeno also has a TikZ cache switch in the project's settings.
\usepackage{tikz} \usetikzlibrary{external} \tikzexternalizeThin out plot data
A plot of a million points is slow to draw and no clearer than one of a few thousand. Keep every tenth point, or save the plot as an image when you do need all of them.
\addplot[each nth point=10, filter discard warning=false, unbounded coords=discard] table {data.csv};Build one chapter at a time
Only the listed chapters are typeset. Page numbers and cross-references come from the last full run.
\includeonly{chapters/results} ... \include{chapters/intro} \include{chapters/results}Draw figures as frames while you write
Draft mode replaces each image with an empty frame of the same size. Remove the option for the final build. Texeno also has a Fast draft switch in the project's settings.
\usepackage[draft]{graphicx}Shrink the images
A 6000-pixel photo shown 8 cm wide costs time on every run. Export photos at about 300 dpi for the printed size, and save plots as vector PDF unless they hold millions of points.
When the document is simply big
A long thesis with many figures can need more than a free plan allows. Texeno's free plan runs a compile for 30 seconds and Scholar and Lab for 8 minutes, against Overleaf's 240 seconds on paid plans, and no plan has a compile quota.
For one-off builds on your own computer there is no limit at all: run latexmk -pdf main.tex in the project folder.
Overleaf's compile limits are from its plans page and documentation.
Questions
What is Overleaf's compile timeout?
Overleaf cut the free plan's limit to 10 seconds in 2025. Paid plans allow longer, 240 seconds according to its plans page.
Does Texeno have a compile quota?
No. The only limit is how long one compile may run: 30 seconds on Free, 8 minutes on Scholar and Lab. A fair-use guard exists against abuse, and normal writing with auto-compile never reaches it.
Why is the second compile faster than the first?
Texeno keeps the files a second pass needs and precompiles your preamble once, so a typical recompile after an edit runs one pass. In our measurements that takes 1 to 3 seconds for most documents and 5 to 8 for those full of TikZ or pgfplots figures.
Try your own paper in Texeno.
Start free, upload a project as a .zip and press Recompile. Upgrade when you need longer compiles.
Start writing
