Typst makes big strides

Typst makes big strides September 9, 2026 This article was contributed by Lee Phillips Typst is a system for typesetting documents into various formats: PDF, SVG, PNG, and, in progress, HTML. It is adept at handling technical material, and is often considered to be an eventual LaTeX replacement. We last looked in on Typst a year ago, when it had reached version 0.13. A new version, 0.15, was released in June with lots of new features, including support for variable fonts, MathML, multiple bibliographies, and more. Typst is free, Apache-2.0-licensed software, programmed in Rust. Variable Fonts Typst now has support for variable fonts. Most fonts are distributed in a set of files containing their glyphs in different weights, in variations such as italic, bold, and so on. A recent development in the world of typography is the advent of variable fonts, which can contain all their variations in a single file. This both saves space and can permit greater flexibility on the part of the author or designer. Font features and variations are chosen by setting the value for an "axis"; each axis changes some aspect of the rendered glyphs. There are typically multiple axes that can have discrete values, for turning on and off various features, or continuous values lying between two limits. The latter can be used, for example, for choosing the weight of the font along a continuum. To test the new Typst feature, I downloaded two open-source variable fonts: Roboto Flex, a general-purpose font with 13 axes, and Zycon, a font containing no letters but 17 small decorative pictures. Zycon's six continuous axes smoothly alter various aspects of the pictures, making the font useful in animations. Here is a Typst document that uses both of these fonts, varying one of the axes for each of them: #set text(font:"Roboto Flex") #for n in (-305, -200, -98) { set text(variations:("YTDE": n)) [A penguin jumped quietly. ] } #set text(font:"Zycon") #for n in array.range(0, 10, inclusive:true) { set text(variations:("M1 ": n/10)) str.from-unicode(127773) } In Typst, a "#" character puts the document in "code mode", where the rest of the line or block is interpreted as code in Typst's built-in language. Within code mode, material enclosed in square brackets is interpreted as "text mode", or text to be typeset. The code above contains two commands to set the fonts by name, using one of the options of the text() function. Next we have for loops, which operate as might be expected. Inside the loops we call the text() function to set the variations variable. The text to be used with the Roboto Flex font is entered directly, but the output using the Zycon font is a single character specified with the str.from-unicode() function. It could have been entered directly, but readers may not have been able to see it, depending on the coverage in their browser's font. The axis that we manipulate in Roboto Flex is called YTDE. As the figure below shows, this axis determines the length of the font's descenders, while leaving its other characteristics unchanged. This might be useful when typesetting tables, for example, to avoid collisions between the descenders and the table-cell boundaries. One of Zycon's six axes, called "M1 " (the two trailing spaces are part of the name; all axis names contain four characters), does different things to different characters. The effect on the Moon glyph is to change the lunar phase. Compiling this document with typst compile vfont.typ produces a PDF in vfont.pdf, which is shown in the screen shot below: MathML HTML export is still an experimental feature of Typst, but this release shows significant progress. The main new HTML feature is the translation of mathematics into MathML. The previous article on Typst showed the markup for a certain definite integral and displayed its output when rendered into a PDF by Typst. The same Typst code, when rendered into HTML, produces a long string of MathML markup that almost all reasonably current web browsers know how to interpret. The result appears like this: ∫01(arcsin𝑥)2d𝑥𝑥21−𝑥2=𝜋ln2 If you don't see an equation above, your browser does not support MathML. If you do see it, a comparison with the typeset equation from the previous article shows that the PDF and HTML results are essentially identical. The ability to use Typst to produce TeX-quality mathematics in web browsers, without requiring a JavaScript library such as MathJax or having to resort to images, is a boon for scientific communication. To enable the experimental HTML output, Typst requires a special flag: typst c --features html integral.typ integral.html That is the command used to typeset the equation markup in a file called integral.typ into HTML. "Bundle" output The typical use case for software such as Typst is the creation of single files, usually papers or books in the form of PDFs. The new "bundle" feature allows the author to specify a collection of output files, in any of the formats that Typst supports, in a single source file. These files can share data and contain both intra-document and inter-document links. The feature is ideal for the creation of web sites, which consist of an interlinked network of HTML files. It should also be of interest to academics who might want to generate a slide deck for a conference talk along with the associated preprint from a single source file. Here is a simple example of a Typst file that creates three interlinked documents, two HTML pages and a PDF, sharing a fragment of text: #let text = ['Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:] #document("poems.html", title: [Famous Poems])[ #link( )[Here] is a famous nonsense poem. ] #document("jabberwocky.html", title: [Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll])[ This famous poem begins like this: #text The #link( )[rest] of the poem. Go #link( )[home]. ] #document("jabberwocky.pdf", title: [Jabberwocky: the Complete Poem])[ #text .... Go #link( )[home]. ] The command for processing this code, if it is saved in a file called bundle.typ, is: typst c --features html,bundle --format bundle bundle.typ In my tests, the bundle feature worked as advertised, but since it, along with HTML output, is still considered a work in progress, the compiler requires the --features flag. The command above creates a new directory called "bundle" containing the three files defined in the #document() functions. They all contain the two initial lines of the poem saved in the text variable. There are hyperlinks between the HTML pages, from one of those to the PDF, and from the latter back to the two-page website. The links are targeted using the labels, contained within angle brackets, following each document function. Multiple bibliographies Typst now permits multiple bibliographies in a single document, which was an eagerly awaited feature. Its canonical application is for books that may need a separate reference section for each chapter. The feature is best introduced with a toy example: #show bibliography: set text(size: 8pt) = Chapter I According to @smith, Smith is uncommonly smart. #bibliography("works.bib", title: "References for Chapter I", group: none) = Chapter II Jones@jones has a different view. The issue was finally put to rest in the following year in @mergutroid. #bibliography("works.bib", title: "References for Chapter II", group: none) Here the first line specifies that the bibliographies should use a font size smaller than the default used in the main text. In that text, the "@" prefixes create a citation using the default number-in-brackets style. At the end of each chapter, the bibliography() function is called. Its first argument specifies which database should be used for the bibliographic information; each bibliography section can use a different database, or collection of databases, if desired (see our recent article on Pandoc for a description of these text-file databases). The group argument controls how the citations are numbered. The value of none causes the numbering to begin with one for each section; numbering can alternatively be continuous for the entire work, or be grouped arbitrarily. The figure below shows the output of the listing as it appears in PDF form: Multiple PDF standards Avoiding the use of proprietary extensions is normally sufficient to ensure that the PDFs created with Typst, LaTeX, or any other competent software will fulfill the promise of the format: documents will be openable and appear identical in all readers, now and in the future. At a deeper level, however, a PDF is not just a PDF. There are various PDF versions and, on top of these, dozens of formal standards relating to archivability and accessibility. The standards for archivability are meant to ensure that the document really does work across a wide variety of reader software and that it will do so forever. The accessibility standards relate to the usability of a PDF for people with disabilities of various sorts. Typst already had the ability to target various PDF versions and standards for archiving or accessibility. The new feature is the option to target more than one when compiling a document. This is useful, because one may want to generate a PDF that has both archival and accessibility attributes. The implementation of the feature helps the author to navigate the forest of PDF standards by issuing warnings or errors in the cases of incompatible combinations or failure to follow best practices for the standards targeted. As an example, here is a command that attempts to compile the "book" document from the previous section, requesting both PDF version 1.7 and the A-1b archive standard: typst c --pdf-standard 1.7,a-1b book.typ The Typst compiler responds with this error message: error: PDF 1.7 is not compatible with PDF/A-1b hint: PDF/A-1b requires version PDF 1.4 PDF version 1.7 is compatible with A-2b, so this will work: typst c --pdf-standard 1.7,a-2b book.typ If, however, we add the UA-1 accessibility standard, as in this command: typst c --pdf-standard 1.7,a-2b,ua-1 book.typ We again get an error: error: PDF/UA-1 error: missing document title = hint: set the title with `set document(title: [...])` Normally the Typst compiler doesn't insist on anything beyond correct syntax, but if we specify a particular accessibility standard, the document must conform to that standard. UA-1 requires, among other things, a document title. The foregoing is not merely arcana, although it may seem to be of little relevance to the typical author of a scientific paper or textbook. These details are important to archivists and publishers; in addition to helping disabled users, producing accessible PDFs is a legal requirement applying to state and federal governments in the US and many other countries. Typst's advanced handling of multiple PDF standards makes it a useful tool in these contexts. Conclusion Typst 0.15 has other enhancements that are not described in detail in this article. Some of these are support for spot colors, detailed diagnostics that explain any failure of convergence during the compilation process, and new map and filter functions in the built-in scripting language. The documentation, which is updated to cover the new version, is now available in a 26MB PDF. Typst is developed on GitHub, where it has 460 contributors. The creators of the project have written a guide for new contributors where they describe what a PR should look like and warn that any code or description generated by an LLM will be rejected. They are also forthright about the fact that Typst is a company as well as an open-source project, and that decisions about the direction of the project, as well as the suitability of individual contributions, will take the needs of the company into account. This is a factor that prospective contributors and users should keep in mind. Progress in the development of the system is impressive. The community of users is enthusiastic; their participation has expanded the Typst ecosystem to over 1500 packages. However, network effects in the publishing world are preventing Typst from fulfilling the potential that we saw for it in our previous article. Although users have devised templates to match the style specifications of several journals, those that require source submissions (rather than just PDFs) still insist on LaTeX, Word, or some other format. Very few accept manuscripts marked up in Typst. This is not likely to change while Typst remains in a pre-1.0 status (which is probably still a ways off) and is in danger of requiring significant, possibly breaking changes to documents. Despite this, Typst is an immensely useful tool today. For example, I recently had to create an SVG logo and found that writing a textual description using Typst's built-in graphics commands was quicker and easier than reaching for a drawing program. It's impossible to say whether Typst's advantages will lead to it becoming a "LaTeX replacement", as many of its admirers describe it. But, if development continues at the current pace, it is a distinct possibility, although one that may take a decade or two to come to fruition. PDF accessibility Posted Sep 9, 2026 16:43 UTC (Wed) by jasonjgw (subscriber, #52080) [Link] (4 responses) Under Linux, the PDF reader in Firefox is the only consumer-side implementation that I have encountered which offers any support for tagged PDF via the Orca screen reader. Now that Typst is moving toward mature support for both tagged PDF and HTML, I'll consider using it for some writing projects, although the lack of acceptance by scholarly publishing venues noted in the article remains an obstacle. At least the included, first-class HTML support should make it easier for me to proofread a rendered version of my own work using a screen reader (braille and speech output), which is possible with LaTeX if external HTML conversion tools are used. PDF accessibility Posted Sep 9, 2026 18:19 UTC (Wed) by leephillips (guest, #100450) [Link] (1 responses) PDF accessibility Posted Sep 10, 2026 21:48 UTC (Thu) by azumanga (subscriber, #90158) [Link] PDF accessibility Posted Sep 15, 2026 14:37 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] Has there been any noise on pandoc supporting conversions? That might help with the scholarly publishing angle. PDF accessibility Posted Sep 19, 2026 15:00 UTC (Sat) by mrugiero (guest, #153040) [Link] Although this feature is useful, it is always best to publish an HTML version of a document alongside the PDF, as there are PDF reading applications that do not support the structure tree (tagged PDF), and a person who is blind or vision-impaired using a screen reader would not benefit from the accessibility features in that case. Although this feature is useful, it is always best to publish an HTML version of a document alongside the PDF, as there are PDF reading applications that do not support the structure tree (tagged PDF), and a person who is blind or vision-impaired using a screen reader would not benefit from the accessibility features in that case. Wouldn't a vision-impaired user pick a PDF reading application that supports tagged PDFs? Not opposing giving out more options, but one would think people are likely to use applications that are accessible to whatever abilities and disabilities they have, provided the option exists. An impressive set of features, but… Posted Sep 18, 2026 7:03 UTC (Fri) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link] (3 responses) Typst has an impressive and growing set of features, as well as remarkable speed. When I first learned about it a few versions ago, I immediately looked into it, trying to get accustomed to its different way of doing things compared to TeX/LaTeX, and evaluating what would be needed to port some of my existing document classes. However, I quickly backed off and put adoption on hold, as the quality of its typesetting has so far been rather disappointing. If Donald Knuth originally designed TeX because he was deeply frustrated by the declining quality of digital typography, then things haven't improved much here. Typst still lacks features that one would nowadays take for granted—such as italic correction (the automatic insertion of kerning space when transitioning from an italic face back to an upright one, which prevents the impression of non-uniform word spacing caused by character slants). Phrases like "odd function" end up looking terrible, as the height of the "d" and the "f" amplifies the visual impact of the missing correction. In many cases, you even get complete collisions, as seen here: https://private-user-images.githubusercontent.com/18075640/241815141-f9dd1b11-5281-4b45-9fb4-537a1916e01a.png?jwt=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.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.neg4OKbcgHlQ3OalxBWAszef0E5iVPvCbDi83DyvgNc This problem is especially systematic when using footnotes: https://private-user-images.githubusercontent.com/10307457/529865105-c391bd78-e905-44c4-9080-48f683b508f5.png?jwt=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJnaXRodWIuY29tIiwiYXVkIjoicmF3LmdpdGh1YnVzZXJjb250ZW50LmNvbSIsImtleSI6ImtleTUiLCJleHAiOjE3ODk3MTQzMjEsIm5iZiI6MTc4OTcxNDAyMSwicGF0aCI6Ii8xMDMwNzQ1Ny81Mjk4NjUxMDUtYzM5MWJkNzgtZTkwNS00NGM0LTkwODAtNDhmNjgzYjUwOGY1LnBuZz9YLUFtei1BbGdvcml0aG09QVdTNC1ITUFDLVNIQTI1NiZYLUFtei1DcmVkZW50aWFsPUFLSUFWQ09EWYLTQTUzUFFLNFpBJTJGMjAyRzA5MTglMkZ1cy1lYXN0LTElMkZzMyUyRmF3czRfcmVxdWVzdCZYLUFtei1EYXRlPTIwMjYwOTE4VDA2NDcwMVomWC1BbXotRXhwaXJlcz0zMDAmWC1BbXotU2lnbmF0dXJlPTIwMThmZGY0Yzc1OTZmNDVhNTE1MjBiMzlkMDE1ODhjNzdmNWY4MjE2NhNhNDIyNWIwNmEwYzkwYTY1ZWU5OTUmWC1BbXotU2lnbmVkSGVhZGVycz1ob3N0JnJlc3BvbnNlLWNvbnRlbnQtdHlwZT1pbWFnZSUyRnBuZyJ9.I6OuNqw5sEVdVurxpLFtzlwij-mILzRzaPRovVfA3kY This leaves many Typst-produced documents looking unprofessional, often giving the impression of a sloppy author. Almost every other typesetting program—traditional TeX engines, modern variants like LuaTeX, SILE, Glu, Patoline—seems to handle this better or offer some form of automatic italic correction, and even MS Word seems to score better here. The fact that this isn't directly supported by standard OpenType text fonts shouldn't hold developers back from implementing a "good enough" heuristic on top of OpenType, as other tools do. And yes, while you can implement the correction manually, there are two major drawbacks: The manual insertion of kerning makes the source document far harder to read. A primary advantage of tools like TeX and Typst is the ability to generate documents programmatically, a workflow where manual kerning adjustments become virtually impossible. An impressive set of features, but… Posted Sep 18, 2026 7:12 UTC (Fri) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link] (2 responses) Just noticed the ugly long links to images in github issues broke in my previous comment when it got published. Trying again: Clashing Footnotes An impressive set of features, but… Posted Sep 18, 2026 17:07 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses) They're still returning 404. An impressive set of features, but… Posted Sep 19, 2026 12:27 UTC (Sat) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link] You are right, they work in my browser, but just because they are cached. Here are the links to the individual comments in the bug thread: too thin spacing too thin spacing clash clash footnote flags footnote flags And also a comparison of different engines On trust, companies and infrastructure Posted Sep 19, 2026 15:06 UTC (Sat) by mrugiero (guest, #153040) [Link] (2 responses) On trust, companies and infrastructure Posted Sep 19, 2026 15:11 UTC (Sat) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] Yes, I agree and I continue to use LaTeX. However, it is a bit frustrating to produce decent epub output from LaTeX input. That may not matter too much for scientific papers, but it does for textbooks or reference books. I have a workflow that "works" using tex4ebook but the result is a bit messy. On trust, companies and infrastructure Posted Sep 21, 2026 22:20 UTC (Mon) by leephillips (guest, #100450) [Link] The article is about the Typst compiler, a Free Software project in every sense of the term. The connection between the compiler project and Typst the company is noted. Nobody can snatch the Typst compiler from its users; its license permits its forking and continued development by anyone. Trust is not required. In fact, an argument could be made that a Free Software project that can manage to support itself through an associated profitable enterprise is on more secure footing, and therefore a safer bet for adopters, than one that depends on donations from users, a notoriously entitled population that has shown itself willing to let projects die rather than cough up support.