Introduction to Typst

Typst is weird…

  • It’s a markup language: like markdown, HTML, LaTeX…
  • With scripting features: for loops, if/else statements, functions…
  • And a unique syntax!

But it’s simple

= Main title

== Here goes the first section
Hey *folks*, how's that _crash course_ going so far?

== Then another section
- And then
- the rest
- of the document

A bit of history


  • 2019: very beginning of Typst
  • 2023: Typst becomes open source
  • 2026: “I do consider Typst ready for production use”, Typst lead dev
    • +50k Gitub stars
    • +4k commits
    • +400 contributors

A bit of context


Typst is very fast, thanks to Rust

  • Typst is also a Rust library! Which means there are bindings to it (Python, R, JavaScript & Rust itself)

A bit of context


  • Typst is 2 things:
    • a compiler
    • a language (or “typesetting system”)


  • And typst is a real language, with a real toolchain:
    • semantic highlighting
    • code formatting and linting
    • language server
      • inlay hints
      • go to definition
      • hover to doc
      • …

How to use Typst

Web app

The web app offers an it just works experience since everything happens in your browser:

  • no installation
  • instant preview
  • auto-completion
  • collaboration
  • And other features!

Text editor

The other option is to work locally inside a text editor. For this, you’ll need to install the Typst compiler. It’s also recommended that you install Tinymist, which is a language service for Typst.

Demo