Typst is a new markup-based typesetting system that is designed to be as powerful as LaTeX while being much easier to learn and use. [1.1]
References
- Type: Webpage. Title: “typst/typst”. Publisher: “GitHub”. Published (Modified): 2026-03-16T09:39:55.000Z. Accessed: 2025-03-18T08:55Z. URI: https://github.com/typst/typst.
- Type: File. Title: “README.md”.
- Type: Text. Location: ¶1.
- Type: File. Title: “README.md”.
In my case Tectonic (XeLaTeX with a few quirks, but error messages are actually readable) and Typst are both goto options when I want to write a document.
LaTeX is older and has currently more features. I would generally recommend it for writing serious articles and documents that need
hyperrefhighlights for instance.Typst still has a lot to catch up when you compare it to LaTeX, but I really like the overall document structure (except the table syntax, but I’ve seen worse) and design choices. In my opiniton, Typst has frendlier tools that just work (Neovim integration is amazing once you figure out the LSP and Tinymist).
Syntactically Typst allows faster typing, so you may use it to write notes directly during lectures.
Math parsing is a bit different, but also tends to be easier to write.
I also like that Typst works with different “elements” than LaTeX. It kinda fells more like HTML and CSS merged into one in terms of control and workflow.
I’d say it still have a long way to go, especially for advanced use cases
If you just want to have a quick pdf generator, it’s definitely the right tool.
One thing that’s way better is the scripting. In LaTeX it’s just an afterthought, simply exposing its convoluted core. In Typst, it feels way more like a first class feature.
For easy pdfs, use markdown with a typst backend
Typst syntax is already simple enough. Why add an unnecessary layer of abstraction
“As powerful as LaTeX” is a huge claim. How strong is this claim?
Edit: The claim is that it is designed to be as powerful as LaTeX, not that it presently is. Does it reach its goal?
There is a probability that I don’t use LaTeX extensively enough but I seldomly run into something that annoys me a lot. I’ve tried Typst once and due to everything being new, it took me quite a while to get everything how I wanted it to look and feel - just to switch back to TeX because I’m incredibly used to it and most of what I do is memorized already. I guess I’ll stay because LaTeX, for my use cases, is incredibly low friction and I don’t mind the compile times at all. Works fast enough for me.
I love typst but I don’t use it. Academic journal templates are all latex, so I can’t use it for my primary use case.
From my limited journal submission experience, some at least just want a PDF. They’ll re-set the thing anyway.
Unfortunately not for most physics journals. Initial can be a PDF, but subsequent needs latex sources.
How does Typst compare to something like Asciidoc ? I haven’t found many editors with typst support unfortunately
It’s not the same use case. Asciidoc is closer to markdown/org/reST, i.e., simple markup languages, whereas Typst also emphasizes on presentation (layouting, element positioning, creation of complex figures, etc.). You can reproduce features from Asciidoc in Typst using scripting.
As for editors, aside from the official webapp, and the community LSP (tinymist), there aren’t that many available.
Thanks for explaining. It seems like I had a completely different understanding/exoectation of what typst is.
It might have a better UX than LaTeX but by design it also has the same double-edge sword feature - if you want or need to do something that is not covered by the default styles you have to rely on 3rd party plugins. That’s just fine for academic papers and such but not when you need a custom style.
Imho ConTeXt still is the king on that side. Though I wish it had the same development pace and documentation as LaTeX’s - or at least as Typst’s
Since when is UX the cause of a need for third-party plugins?
LaTeX is an incredibly mature piece of software, since it exists for some 50 years and is (and was) incredibly popular. Of course newer players won’t have as much ready-made plugins, let alone first-party packages for most stuff.
Latex surely had the exact same issue when it wasn’t as mature as it is today, but in time people wrote plugins and in more time they were included as defaults.
Comparing them quality-wise on equal footing and proclaiming Latex better than the younger, less popular alternative with less developed community code is disingenuous at best.
And UI/UX has absolutely nothing to do with styling: both are features, and one product happens to have one while the other happens to have the other. They’re not mutually exclusive in theory.
However, I will give in that usually resource limits mean only one gets included. But that’s corellation and not causation: good UX does not cause bad feature parity. The core cause is both requiring resources and one is usually made the top priority.
I’ve been meaning to learn LaTeX but never got around to it. I write documents in markdown and convert to PDF, but would like to have some rich typesetting.
For anyone who has ever used both, would you recommend learning this or LaTeX for non-academic use case?
Typst is way simpler to learn, especially if you’re used to markdown. You can first approach it as a markup language like markdown, but with some scripting.
Package management in LaTeX is infuriatingly bad, you can’t even specify the version you want to use.
As someone who used LaTeX for many years and then switched over to Typst, I see no reason to use LaTeX these days. Typst syntax is more readable and it is much nicer to write.
Especially if you’re coming from markdown, I think Typst is the better choice. Typst syntax is very similar to markdown for the simple things and more advanced things are like any super high level programming language.
the compilation speed boost and package size reduction are enough to make me salivate lol cant wait to try this out. anyone made nvim plugin for it tho?
More than one it seems:
https://forum.typst.app/t/tinymist-vs-typst-vim-vs-typst-preview-nvim/1775/7
