(a) fractionating the catalytic reformate to obtain a light reformate and a heavy-reformate feed stream comprising alkylaromatic hydrocarbons and containing about 1.0 wt.-% or more of C₉ and heavier hydrocarbons including about 0.5 wt.-% or more of methylethylbenzenes;

(b) contacting the feed stream in the presence of hydrogen with a heavy-aromatics-conversion catalyst in a heavy-aromatics-conversion zone at heavy-aromatics-conversion conditions to obtain a de-ethylated stream having a lower content of methylethylbenzenes than the content in the feed stream;

(c) fractionating the de-ethylated aromatic stream to separate a light product comprising C₇ and lighter hydrocarbons and a heavy product comprising C₉ and heavier hydrocarbons from a intermediate stream comprising C₈ aromatics;

(d) subjecting the light reformate stream to an aromatics-extraction and fractionation step to separate benzene, toluene and a toluene-bottoms stream from a non-aromatic raffinate;

(e) contacting the heavy product comprising C₉ and heavier hydrocarbons and at least a portion of the toluene in a transalkylation zone with a transalkylation catalyst at transalkylation conditions to obtain a transalkylation product;

(f) fractionating the transalkylation product to separate a C₇ and lighter stream, an intermediate stream and a C₉ and heavier stream;

(g) subjecting at least a portion of the intermediate stream, along with an isomerized stream, to an isomer-recovery process to recover at least one high-purity xylene isomer and yield a C₈-aromatic raffinate stream comprising non-recovered C₈-aromatic isomers; and,

(h) contacting at least a portion of the C₈-aromatic raffinate stream with an isomerization catalyst in an isomerization zone at isomerization conditions comprising substantially less than 0.05 moles of hydrogen/mole of feed to obtain the isomerized stream comprising a concentration of at least one xylene isomer that is higher than the concentration in the C₈-aromatic raffinate stream.